Adrien Sina.
Anatomical Architecture 
Fashion designs inspired by the lymphatic system 

As part of ‘Feminine Futures’ exhibition series, this project investigates radical and innovative frontiers in fashion design by interweaving architecture, medical science, fashion photography, and artificial intelligence. A new paradigm of materiality emerges through the sensual interplay of structural membranes and architectural forms transposed onto human skin. Inspired by the intricate patterns of the lymphatic system, this approach proposes new textures which dissolve boundaries between anatomy and technology, skin and fabric. It reveals a liminal state between translucence and fibrogenic complexity, between nodal networks and aerodynamic smoothness. The resulting aesthetic is architectural, biomorphic and deeply tactile, anticipating a vision of fashion’s possible futures. 

The lymphatic system, accidentally discovered by Gaspard Aselli in 1622 as ‘lacteal veins’, has long remained an enigma. Further examined by Giovanni Battista Bidello in 1627, Thomas Bartholin in 1652, and Paolo Mascagni in 1787, it continues to intrigue scientists. Unlike the more visually defined anatomies of muscle, bone, nerves or blood vessels – long the focus of artistic and medical illustration – the lymphatic system appears almost amorphous, if not repellent. Despite its highly sophisticated role within the immune system, the rarity of its representation stimulates unexplored and unforeseen artistic perspectives. 

This body of work follows two solo exhibitions ‘Archaeology of Desire / Performing Anatomies – a history of medical gaze and flesh’ in 2005 at 1+2 artspace, and in 2012 at Richard Roger’s NEO Bankside Pavilion, London.

BIO
Adrien Sina is architect, artist, curator, dance & performance art historian. He has curated cross-disciplinary exhibitions involving architecture, performance & new media: ‘Fugitive Fluctuations’, 1995-96; ‘Tragédies Charnelles’ and ‘Immanences Spatiales’, 2000; ‘Feminine Futures – Avant-garde female artists in the fields of performance & dance’, Performa Biennial, New York, 2009, and Le Consortium Contemporary Art Centre, Dijon, 2014; ‘Feminine Futures – The Membrane of the Dream I & II’, Museum Langmatt, Switzerland, 2015. He has contributed to ‘Art, Lies and Videotape: Exposing Performance’, Tate Liverpool, 2003; ‘Traces du sacré’ and ‘Danser sa vie’, Centre Pompidou, 2008/2011; ‘Futurism’, Tate Modern, 2009; ‘Inventing Abstraction’, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2013; ‘The Great Mother’, Palazzo Reale, Milan, 2015; ‘Elles font l’Abstraction’, Centre Pompidou & ‘Women in Abstraction’, Guggenheim Bilbao, 2021-2022, ‘The Milk of Dreams’, La Biennale di Venezia, 2022.  

Æstetisk Seminar er tilrettelagt af AIIM – Centre for Aesthetics of AI Images, Lotte Philipsen og Mette-Marie Zacher Sørensen, Institut for Kommunikation og Kultur, Aarhus Universitet.