Swathes of rich honey melt into tones of sun yellow. Individuals representing divergent identities are sheathed together. The rich cloth, draped over two figures, depicts a unified form.
Mina Lundgren, Swedish artist and designer is the founder of Notion of Form. Employing a conceptual approach to the field of fashion, the project began out of a desire “to create a modern abstract expression that visualized diversity avoiding clichéd representations such as exoticism, symbolism or statement fashion.”
Lundgren was fatigued and frustrated with the prevalence of “stereotypical multicultural fashion” and created the brand as a platform to explore alternative options. “I wanted to create a visual language that was universal in the sense that anyone, regardless of where they came from, could comprehend it.”
Minimalist shapes are “explored through dynamic expressions” in which the “subtle and suggestive features of the abstracted body”. The visual language constructed in Notion of Form is founded on a “minimalist/maximalist” aesthetic in which bold colour, structure and form take precedence in this “raw essentialism”.
Notion of form is conceptually rooted in a sculptural approach in the field of cross cultural dress, as an attempt to navigate and avoid the pitfalls of ‘othering’. “The aim for Notion of Form is that its products can effortlessly be appreciated and integrated in different parts of the world.” As diversity is celebrated and visualized through abstract forms and colors.
The project is also an innovative collaboration with Nigerian fashion photographer Lakin Ogunbanwo. For a long time, Lundgren had felt an affinity towards his vibrant and conceptually bold work. In which Ogunbanwo often explores and consolidates identity politics and a larger cultural collective in a visual field. “I love the rawness in his photography and how he works with the body as a form as well as his strong use of colours.”
Navigating multi-culturalism in an ever increasingly globalised world is a challenging project to undertake. As a primary position Lundgren describes the importance of tolerance in order to co-exsist. “As a western cultural practitioner its especially important to not culturally appropriate, commercialize or commodify other cultures. Nevertheless, cultures are not stagnant phenomena and are results of multiple influences merged together through history and it’s important to understand our own role in society when creating new expressions.”
She sees the future of Notion of Form extending into other collections and projects. “I’m interested in abstracting the body even more into pure forms. I want to investigate this both through commercial clothing and through an artistic approach.” Lundgren also plans for more collaborations that proliferate the Notion of Form philosophy.
