Exhibitions provide us an important way to engage with public, and to visualize our methods and findings. During this five-year project, we organize exhibitions that, on the one hand, allow the audience to engage with 16th-century experience of making (the sense of space, the materials and tools used in the early modern period, the processes and products, and so forth); and on the other, provide an opportunity for us to showcase the methods and results of our experimental work.
At the start of the project, we reconstructed an early sixteenth-century tailor’s workshop, in collaboration with a number of local Finnish crafts-people and using the famous image of a tailor’s and fabric shop from Castello Challant, Issogne (Valle d’Aaosta, 1489-1502) as a source of inspiration. The purpose of this exhibition was to provide us a platform -a kind of a performative stage- where we can speak about our work, disseminate knowledge of early modern craft and fashion practices, and discuss in an informal way with the audience.
At the end of the project, we organized a second exhibition focusing on our experimental work. This exhibition demonstrated the experiments that we have carried out during the project: the experiments we organized, the products that were made; and the tools that were used, and the expert knowledge needed for these experiments. This was organized in connection to our final conference, 9–12 September 2021.
13 September – 29 October 2021
Reconstructing Everyday Fashion, 1550-1650
In this exhibition you will meet some of the artisans we have uncovered in archival records who owned brightly dyed, elegantly trimmed, and innovatively styled clothing and accessories. You will see from visual sources, accounting records, and written texts that everyday people bought, wore, and were interested in participating in fashion.
9 November – 25 November 2021
Stitching History!
What did stockings look like, and how were ordinary and fine knitted stockings made in the Renaissance period? Researchers and voluntary skilled Finnish knitters replicated historical stockings, based on written and material evidence from archives, museums and printed recipe books.
7 January — 8 February 2019
Sixteenth-Century Tailor’s Workshop
The exhibition recreated a sixteenth-century tailor’s workshop, modelled after early modern images, such as a fresco of drapers in Castello di Issogne, Italy, and introduced visitors to the tools and techniques used by early modern tailors.
19 November – 7 December 2020
Outré: Encounters with non/living things
The exhibition Outré: Encounters with non/living things showcases works which were created fully or in part at the open Biofilia Lab of Aalto University. The Refashioning the Renaissance project displays results of the Fake it ‘til you Make It workshop, which use organic matter and scientific methods to question the material and conceptual boundaries between original and fake, real and imitation.