D&K
24 August 2025, 2:00-3:00pm
This lecture will discuss examples that situate the practice of D and K across material histories, dress and critical intersections with the social and political impacts of these. The practice regularly works with specific cases of marginal and illicit body and material practices often conducted by women outside of the traditional realms of fashion history. Practices of smuggling and mudlarking are historically dismissed as marginal and unsightly; we explore how they reveal overlooked narratives of survival, labour and agency—working with fashion outside of fashion and in outsider realms of scavenging, gathering, patching, dressing and co-opting materials as a necessity.
D&K is a collaborative practice between Ricarda Bigolin and Chantal Kirby based in Naarm/ Melbourne, founded in 2012. Working with the disregarded, found or worn, they explore ways to transcend material values and behaviours. Garments, sculpture, performance and writing are configured to embody emotional currency, interrogating the impact of fashion systems.