After the Fashion & Textile Museum I went to the White Cube for the ‘Dreamers Awake’ exhibition, which explores the enduring influence of Surrealism through the work of more than 50 women artists. The exhibition consisted of different sculptures, paintings, collages, photographs and drawings from day from relevant surrealist artists of the past as well as contemporary emerging artists.

‘‘Woman has a powerful presence in Surrealism. By focusing on the work of women artists, ‘Dreamers Awake’ hopes to show how, through art foregrounding bodily experience, the symbolic woman of Surrealism is refigured as a creative, sentient, thinking being. Repossessed by its owner, the fragmented, headless body of Surrealism becomes a vehicle for irony, resistance, humour and self-expression’’

This relates to the subject of Activism: art, as well as fashion, is a way of expressing personal views and thoughts, that aims to make the audience look into more detail, think outside the box and encode, decode and interpret the work in their own way. The work that I liked the most was by feminist artist Linder; I did not know the artist until then and her collages and strong images really captured my attention. I particularly enjoyed the paintings of Louise Bourgeois with Tracey Emin (2009-2010), a series of dyes painted on cloth, that, through abstract and soft lines, colors and writings express feelings of melancholy, hoplessness, and emphasize the patriarchal elements of society relating to love, sex and maternity. Maria Bartuszova’s sculptures such as the ‘Rounded Torso’, as well as the works of Berline de Bruyckere and Dorothea Tanning, focus on the female body, distorting it and deforming its shapes.