Custo Discovery #0 – DIY Plushies w/ Evidence Doll
Affixing a tag to an item acknowledges the relationship between steward and item. One forges a kind of spiritual agreement with the item. You're saying, 'I am a custodian, I am your custodian, I will take care of you'. Items and people live a long time and we both take care of each other while we're alive.
—from the official custo(disco) website, on the tagging ritual
Join us at Z-Space for an evening of thoughtful plushie-making led by inimitable fashion/music/movement/tattooing powerhouse Malik "evidence doll" as part of a series of events introducing the custo kiosk to Vancouver.
Bring a small artifact (around 1.5x1.5"/4x4cm) for embedding into a plushie!
This event has a limited number of PWYC/NOTAFLOF seats, if you're not in a situation to afford the listed price please send an email to [email protected] for more info.
What is custo? Custodisco (or just custo) is a kiosk for fostering and documenting the relationships between people and things.
Developed from the thesis that items with a documented history are less likely to meet an untimely end of life, it is an item management and tagging system made with these characteristics in mind:
aesthetic appeal, allowing artistic self-expression in creating tags
uplifting maintenance, with an accompanying meditative and grounding maintenance ritual
independence & resilience, using durable and enduring components
The kiosk allows you to design your own custom fabric or sticker tags to affix to items. A QR code is printed to the tag with a unique item ID, allowing people to update stories, history and meta-data about the item on Scuttlebutt, a decentralized social network that doesn't rely on the internet.
Custo creator Trav Fryer is an artist who crafts interactive installations, maintenance art, events, video and 2D art. He organizes a free store and a Repair Cafe in Burlington, Vermont and is a co-owner of the technology worker cooperative Autonomic. His website is https://teafry.me.
Workshop leader Evidence doll is a transmasc nonbinary Arab multidisciplinary designer born to create, deconstructing their relationship with their body and exploring identity, catharsis, and the organized chaos of worldbuilding, as found primarily through music production, movement, fashion design, and tattooing.
Thanks to:
Trav for deciding to come up here to set up a custo
Malik for being game to do a workshop around it
sk for making the event graphics
Z-Space for being a gracious and cozy event venue
UBC Slow Fashion for helping bring custo to Vancouver
Look out for it as part of their Slow Fashion Lab exhibition at AHVA Gallery from February 25–March 20