Artwork Spotlight: Dress Tents, Robin Lasser and Adrienne Pao

#MondayArtworkSpotlight: Today we’re highlighting another fantastic group of artworks in Inside Out: Seeing Through Clothing: “Dress Tents,” a series of wearable architecture installations and photographs created by Bay Area artists Robin Lasser (@rjlasser) and Adrienne Pao (@adriennepao).

DressTent_Camera Obscura.jpg

Since 2005, Lasser + Pao have designed their large-scale Dress Tents in response to different geographical and cultural contexts, from the hula culture of Hawaii to the military history of Russia. Each site-specific work features a female performer occupying the top part of the dress, while visitors and participants can enter the lower tent portion, which often contains music, images, or other forms of storytelling that offer a more intimate and interactive understanding of place.

DressTent_Hula.jpg
DressTent_SariInterior.jpeg
DressTent_SariExterior.jpeg

Dress Tents on display in Inside Out:

  • Ms. Yekaterinburg: Camera Obscura Dress Tent, Church on the Blood, Yekaterinburg, Russia, 2011

  • Hula Girl Dress Tent, Waikiki, Oahu, 2017

  • Sari Dress Tent, City Hall, San Francisco, 2018 (exterior view)

  • Sari Dress Tent, City Hall, San Francisco, 2018 (interior view)