Mila Sall – SAIC Fashion Show 2023

Student Work

Mila Sall

milasall.cargo.site

The pulse of CROSSMODAL is derived from my curiosity and discomfort around how language and direct interpersonal communication are changing due to an exponentially greater degree of global digital connectivity. It is driven by an admiration for the complexity and ephemerality of language and sound, and where the two collide. I am drawn to comparing communicating for yourself, with yourself, to yourself, versus for, with, and to others. CROSSMODAL touches perception, personality, philosophy, and is influenced by visualizations of sound and language production. Examination of the parts of speech, both grammatical and anatomical, led to shape and textile manipulation. Research around the anatomy and physiology of sound production by the human body is honored through embroidery and textile design. Studies of written and spoken language activated a demure exploration of communication, definition, relativity, and context.

The human body is an experiential vessel for communication, a series of resonant cavities that create, hold, and share frequencies. What senses are activated when we converse?

Individual experience eludes description but we continue to share words, images, sounds and sensations in an effort to connect. An exquisitely corporeal broadcast.

Mila Sall - Sall_1

Sall_1, Photo: James Prinz

Mila Sall - Sall_2

Sall_2, Photo: James Prinz

Mila Sall - Sall_3

Sall_3, Photo: James Prinz

Mila Sall - Sall_4

Sall_4, Photo: James Prinz

Mila Sall grew up in San Francisco’s Excelsior neighborhood where they attended Spanish immersion elementary school and were introduced to a wide variety of art-making practices and mediums. They amplified their interest in language and articulation through music-led communities. Throughout high school, their primary creative outlet was singing and touring with the Young Women’s Chorus of San Francisco. During their junior year, they studied abroad in Stockholm, Sweden, where they continued singing with a local youth choir and engaged with traditional fine art mediums including painting, drawing and sculpting. They also interned at a small sewing studio where they learned couture techniques and gained experience with industrial equipment.

The change in environment was creatively reinvigorating, and when they returned to San Francisco for their senior year they concurrently enrolled in City College to take fashion classes. Mila moved to Chicago to attend the School of the Art Institute in 2019. Since then, they have interned for the children’s clothing brand HAVA, taken courses at Ox-Bow School for Art and Artist Residency multiple times, and were accepted into SAIC’s fashion design core program.

Currently, Mila works with Vogds as a studio assistant while he prepares a garment collection in conjunction with his debut album. This has been an immensely fulfilling experience where they can engage with the types of making they enjoy most- ritualistic handwork and eclectic iterative play.

Mila is intrigued by the enigmatic forms found in communication which are mirrored in their own simultaneously frenetic yet pensive methods of creating. They approach clarification and further definition of their interests as an additive process. Their definition of linguistics has expanded profoundly to involve fibers/textile, garment and body.

Textiles have always been a communicative medium. The English word ‘text’ is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root ‘teks’ meaning to weave or fabricate. Consider their structural similarities as well: fluid, invariably affected by time, supported by tension and relation.

Mila’s work spans garment and fibers as well as sound, sculpture, performance and a range of image-making processes. It encourages both maker and viewer to slow down and observe in tandem across time. They are interested in the gravity of an idea to pull us in, closer, and set our feet firmly on new ground.

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