BECOMING GHILLIE
becoming ghillie is an ongoing research project that investigates the interaction of material, body and landscape through making wearable textile objects. How can a garment become a sensorial relational tool for extending ourselves towards the non-human realm?
This is a collaborative research project by product designer Elza Berzina and landscape architect Anna Maria Fink supported by the experiment grant of the Dutch Creative Industries Fund 2023.
embodied research investigating the interaction of
material, body and landscape
One is
not bodiless,
but
essential body.
Nan Shepherd
WHO IS GHILLIE?
A ghillie suit is a type of camouflage clothing designed to resemble the background environment such as foliage, snow or sand. Typically, it is a net or cloth garment covered in loose strips of burlap, cloth, or twine, sometimes made to look like leaves and twigs, and optionally augmented with scraps of foliage from the area.
The English word “ghillie” is derived from the Scots Gaelic gille, meaning a young man or older boy who works as an (1) outdoor assistant (most familiar in reference to those employed to assist sportsmen with recreational shooting or fishing in the Highlands). In Scottish mythology the term “ghillie suit” is believed to refer to an (2) earth spirit clothed in leaves and moss (Gille Dubh).
