PORTAL 001 Reader is the result of a workshop during the Change the System exhibition at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam in which Elisa van Joolen worked with MA Fashion Strategy students generation 27 to research the economic, social and emotional value of clothing worn by visitors of the exhibition. The collected information on 159 pieces of clothing is visualized and brought together in this reader designed by Beau Bertens.

PORTAL is a research project that explores the economic, social and emotional value of clothing and offers a ‘way in’ to understanding garments from a multitude of overlapping and intersecting perspectives.

For every edition, participants are asked to take off a garment, lay it down on a large Tyvek sheet, outline their garment with tape and answer a series of questions regarding its production (Where was it made?), materials (What is it made of?), ownership (Is it yours?) and value (How much did it cost? What is the emotional value?). Subsequently connections are made between the garments by literally drawing lines between the items of the various visitors, creating a network that reveals connections between and intersections of personal, economic, social, cultural and political realms surfacing a complex and layered system of the reality of clothing. This culminates in a map, or landscape of personal stories that connect to form a fashion network which inverts our gaze, shining a spotlight on the intricacies of our own outfits and extraordinary aspects of the everyday as opposed to the myth of the exclusive fashion image. PORTAL thus provides an entryway to a vision that begins to prioritise values that are ephemeral and yet integral in “influencing hearts and minds and shaping the way we live together”. It captures and visualises information that circumvents established hierarchies and disrupts the homogeneity of the commercially driven fashion system with the refreshing diversity of fashion that is worn; embodied and imperfect.

The collected information of each PORTAL edition is visualized and brought together in a reader using the sixteen PORTAL questions as their starting point.

For PORTAL 001 Elisa van Joolen worked with students from the MA Fashion Strategy programme of ArtEZ University of the Arts to research the economic, social and emotional value of clothing worn by visitors of the Change the System exhibition at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Information on 159 pieces of clothing worn by visitors was collected. The collected data is visualized and brought together in a reader designed by Beau Bertens.

Type: softcover with plastic sleeve\ Dimensions: 210 mm x 297 mm portrait\ Pages: 36\ Art Direction: Elisa van Joolen\ Researchers and contributors: Adriana Fox Hopper, Chinouk Filique de Miranda, Cinzia Magnani, Gayeon Je, Hester Brands, Ieva Uzkurataite, Julia Kaleta, Karmen Samson, Maria Gil Mendoza, Marina Sasseron de Oliveira Cabral\ Texts by: Adriana Fox Hopper, Chinouk Filique de Miranda, Cinzia Magnani, Elisa van Joolen, Gayeon Je, Hester Brands, Ieva Uzkurataite, Julia Kaleta, Karmen Samson, Maria Gil Mendoza, Marina Sasseron de Oliveira Cabral\ Graphic design: Beau Bertens\ Release date: Spring 2018\ Binding: staples\ Edition: 300\ Color: Black, pink and red – riso printed\ Printer: Walter Books\ Language: English\ Text editor: Femke de Vries\ Made possible by: MA Fashion Strategy at ArtEZ University of the Arts, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen\ Production: Warehouse\ Production assistant: Asu Aksu