The T-Shirt Issue, London

The T-Shirt Issue are a Berlin-based design collective who have been in residence in the Victoria & Albert Museum for the last six months as part of a German design residency

Dreamland, The T-Shirt Issue

The T-Shirt Issue are a Berlin-based design collective who have been in residence in the Victoria & Albert Museum for the last six months as part of a German design residency in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut London. Dreamland is the brand’s output from the residency, a sculptural installation currently on show at the V&A for the London Design Festival. With a title that is inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s poem ‘Dream-land’ (1844) where a dream-voyager arrives in a place beyond space and time and decides to stay there, the work began by 3D scanning eight pieces of the V&A’s permanent collection, which were then digitally sculpted into four physical hybrid creatures, each made up of 2 scans. The T-Shirt Issue comment: “Once its digital data is extracted, an object’s certainty is removed, leaving it open for alteration and reinterpretation. Similar to dreams, all boundaries seem to vanish, creating a new context in which a parallel version of the object is free to exist. The known is replaced with endless narratives that collectively create an unexpected history and unremembered future.

The four fabric figures are No 917: Eve Listening to the Voice (468-1875) & Owl (Statuette A.131-1980), No 987: Narcissus (7560-1861) & Meissen Goat (C.111-1932), No 895: The Crouching Venus (A.5-2012) & Golden Eagle (Cast Court) and No 903: Christ on an Ass (A.1030-1910) & The Frog Princess.

No 903: Christ on an Ass (A.1030-1910) & The Frog Princess.

No 895: The Crouching Venus (A.5-2012) & Golden Eagle (Cast Court)

No 987: Narcissus (7560-1861) & Meissen Goat (C.111-1932)

No 917: Eve Listening to the Voice (468-1875) & Owl (Statuette A.131-1980)

Previous work by the The T-Shirt Issue includes these two marvellous wearable designs, sculpted tops with a bird and a fox forms.