INFO

Produced by National Geographic Explorer Thammika Songkaeo, Changing Room is the umbrella term for an eponymous dance film and somatic and guided journaling sessions led by trained facilitators to engage participants in their mind-body connection—vital to questions of clothing (over)consumption.

 

The film was directed by Adelene Stanley and conceptualized while Thammika, Adelene, and Ahilya Kaul were together in a dance studio in January 2022. Initially, Thammika had asked the two dancers to come in to give "a dance about climate change." They did not move her. Wondering what went wrong, she realized that her prompt, not the dancers, was to blame.

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Shifting the prompt to, "a dance about how you feel about your own bodies," Thammika only wanted to remind them how emotional depth would feel. Luckily for her, they didn't ask what she was doing. They began to move. Hands beat belly fat. Eyes looked in the mirror for the soul.

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Then, the same interesting pattern emerged: the dancers touched and fumbled with their clothes. "I had asked you to dance about how you feel about your own bodies, but there was a lot with clothes. What do you think that was about?" Thammika wondered. From there, a conversation flowed: clothes were used to conceal what people didn't like about their bodies or to make them feel better.

 

Acknowledging how clothing is heavily overproduced and over-consumed, the team accepted the emerging through-line: how we feel about our bodies affects how we buy clothes and feed the giant, nature-killing fashion industry machine. 

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