ARTIST INTERVIEW: MANE X JAIMIE KLUM
What do you feel is the role of the conscious mind? What do you feel is the role
of the subconscious?
Huge question.
I think the conscious mind's role is to provide awareness and gives us the ability to do life, but only on what our minds and bodies can handle without being overwhelmed and confused by the unprocessed parts of the self.
I think your unconscious mind drives your subconscious mind which then drives your
conscious mind. The subconscious to me is all the thoughts and behaviours just below the surface that we aren't fully aware of. I think its role is to act like a filter of the unconscious and a protector of the conscious. I'm still learning though.
How does the use of PVC align with the principles behind the works?
The red PVC is what started the work. I seem to be quite material driven in my practice. It might come from my design background.
Basically, I found a huge pile of soft red plastic offcuts from a welding curtain
production company, and I was fascinated by the material and how it was making me
feel to be around it. I felt uneasy both looking at it and handling it. After that, it was
experiment after experiment on amplifying this sense of uneasiness through scale, form, kinetics, lighting, and pneumatics. It took me down a huge rabbit hole into psychological and philosophical theory. I was trying to understand why this material was making people so uncomfortable.
As it turns out, its quite complicated and extremely personal to each person.
What was the thought behind suspending them?
I suspended Selve and Kin to show that they come from a liminal place: not quite here, not quite there. They are latent, caught between our conscious and
Unconscious.
The tangle of rubber tubes and straps prevent them from being grounded
in the here and now. They prevent them from being grounded in our conscious mind. They are abstract representations of what is living and breathing below the surface of what we can actually grasp.
I think I always knew they would take up a lot of space. Initially I was imagining a much larger work that would take up the walls and ceiling so you would walk underneath it and have it envelop you from all sides. For a future project, I think!
MANE was a warehouse and a sex club. Do you think this speaks to the dimensionality of the work?
What a better location than an ex-sex club to have some wanting, needing, breathing, strapped up, blow up plastic art?
No, honestly, I think this work can be read as representations of the parts of our
repressed and unprocessed selves. They are crying out to be seen and heard but are getting ignored, shunned and shamed. But here we are showcasing them. Bringing them out to play in the open.
Fuck marry kill: intrusive thoughts, a mourning period of five years, seasonal depression.
Fuck intrusive thoughts (because it sounds exciting), marry a mourning period of five years (because it’s important to honour love and loss), kill seasonal depression (because it sucks and is unnecessary).
Is there a particular artist who inspired your practice? Is there an individual who
inspired these works (artist or non-artist)?
So many. Artists, philosophers, psychoanalysts, and neuroscientists.
Eva Hesse was a big influence, as well as Louise Bourgeois, Kaari Upson and Paul
Thek. The theorists too, like Julia Kristeva, Gilles Deleuze and Carl Jung really fed into this work.
I was getting a lot of therapy at the time I was making the works, so these thinkers
helped make sense of what was happening between my mind and my hands.
It’s such a cliché but we actually want to know: if you could have dinner with any
artist – living or dead – who would it be? One artist for steak frites at France Soir
and one for high tea at the Langham. And one for a tequila shot at Revolver.
I would love to have steak frites with the intimidating and extraordinary Louise
Bourgeois. We could discuss our daddy issues.
The Langham with Paul Thek. I'd ask him what it's like to be dead and if it's everything he thought it would be.
Maybe Hannah Levy would come and have a tequila shot at Revolver with me. We
could both come dressed in latex and I would ask her too many questions about silicone and steel in the smoker’s area.
MANE COMMUNITY- REX COLLINGWOOD
It's such a blessing residing in Collingwood- not least beacause of our neighbours. Some are loud, some are quiet. Some are old, some are young.
Outtakes from our day in the warehouse with our neighbour Reece from Rex Melbourne. Reece wears head to toe P.A.M 'The Last Two Million Years' collection.
Shop the collection here.
Photos courtesy of our very own, Nic Williams
ALIX HIGGINS INTERVIEW
As a teaser for this week’s launch of Alix Higgins’ Pre-Fall ’26 collection entitled Goodbye Cowboy at MANE, we sat down with the designer and chewed the fat.
ORSON: Let’s break the ice: what did you wear on the plane here?
ALIX: I’ve actually detoured through Shanghai on my way to Melbourne from Sydney. So this outfit had been in the suitcase for a while waiting for the airport. I wore full look Alix Higgins: Goodbye Cowboy V-neck which I have worn the entire time I’ve been in Melbourne, Couture Tee, and a Phoebe Cutler necklace. She has a studio in my building.
ORSON: Introdu…
ALIX: Oh! And I’m also wearing pants. Alix Higgins Split Shorts.
ORSON: Tea! Thank you. Introduc…
ALIX: Omg and Raybans I’ve had since I was 15. I was given them for Christmas – they’re black Wayfarers. A bit Robert Pattinson in Twilight.
ORSON: I was thinking more Audrey Hepburn, but yes! Introduce us to Alix Higgins Pre-Fall ’26 as if this were a blind date and you had matchmade us.
ALIX: I had a lot of fun making it. The character of this collection is just…funny. Cool but actually sick and twisted. Definitely not straight down the barrel. Essentially I’d describe them as cool and chic with a very, very strong sense of humour – but that sense of humour is maybe not for everyone.
ORSON: We love a slogan at MANE and this is obviously something on which we align – tell us about ‘Goodbye Cowboy’
ALIX: Goodbye Cowboy is a phrase I first encountered in a book called ‘My First Book’ by Honor Levy. It’s a collection of short stories and it was a bit of a throwaway line from one of the characters. I looked it up and it also happens to be the song title of a million country songs. I think it’s tragic and sad for sure – heartbreaking most definitely but still quite tough. I seem to always be drawn to slogans that are meaningless but meaningful.
ORSON: What’s the best non-Alix Higgins slogan you’ve seen lately?
ALIX: I came here from Shanghai two days ago and while I was there I saw an amazing tee that just said SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE in giant capital letters. Like, any inconvenience. Not for one in particular. And after seeing it I felt like I could go about my day and all was forgiven.
ORSON: What would you wear to my funeral?
ALIX: To your funeral, I’d do the full look in black chiffon from Alix Higgins Goodbye Cowboy. I think it’s respectfully covered – like head to toe – but also completely see-through. And maybe a custom veil in the same fabric.
ORSON: What would you wear to your own funeral?
ALIX: I guess my wedding dress? The moodboard is sort of the dress Lady Gaga wears at the end of the Judas video clip while she’s being stoned. It’s Christian Lacroix. I would like to wear that for both occasions.
ORSON: I know the dress. Thoughts on new Madonna?
ALIX: I love it. Madonna is so cool. It’s also so cool to see someone doing what they always have done. I think the album is so fabulous because it’s so unflinching and confident. Like, it says “I know what I’m about”. It’s more of the same but it’s what we want.
ORSON: My favourite song is School.
ALIX: Mine are Danceteria and L.E.S. Girl.
Shop Alix's latest collection Goodbye Cowboy here
