This project is about working with a cloth in the form of T-shirts. The Idea was born in 2016 and the process was started in 2017. At this time the western globalizing idea of humanity realization through consumerism and selling is going now in Russia after 69 years of socialism.
Ten years after the crash of the Soviet Union in Russia the ideas of "wild" capitalism are spreading and growing in Russia, as local politicians and economic analysts call it, in connection with ultra-rapid development and local characteristics. And in this reality, when all street violence has almost disappeared and the organized criminal groups of the nineties have been modified into businessmen, all are mired in creating and copying Western models of self-realization, whether it's street culture or its commercial business. Of course, the rapid changes in circumstances and the subsequent stratification of regimes brought new ideas.
This global change of political and social-economic course has led to the creation of new solutions and modifications in Western models such as the fashion industry, giving it a fresh spin.
And as a result of this process, it was understood that there is no global D.I.Y. sub-culture. The entire mass material culture that still existed among young people up to the mid-noughties is gone. These are audiotapes, videotapes, CDs, posters and magazines. Today a computer or a smartphone has replaced everything. There was a request for limited clothing. Clothes are new graffiti. Based on that, street activity was supposed to show up on the clothes. The movement of graffiti names on clothing resonated strongly with young people.
DEMO016 sets a different challenge than moving a logo from the street to fabric. We give out T-shirts to artists from Russia and other countries so that they can reconsider the fabric. People who don't work in the fashion industry but work on the street can use the T-shirts as a medium for their statements.
Each artist participating in the project is shown a video showing his or her statement, street art activities and the process of working with the T-shirts. All the T-shirts created are a single copy and are not planned to be repeated. Since the T-shirts tend to be made up, there may not be a single work of art from a particular artist participating in the project at the end of some time. DEMO016 is similar to the street, as the works on the street often have a deadline.