Tiina Majabacka
The Sound Memory of the Ruff
28.3.-21.4.2024
“The Sound Memory of the Ruff” is a video focusing on the sensory experience related to the ruff, especially sounds. The costume in the video is like a living creature that controls and moves the person inside it. The work is an impossible attempt to reach into the past and experience historical garments and their forgotten sounds.
The video was shot at Qvidja Gård, the oldest manor in Finland, located in Parainen. The soundscape was created using sounds of the ruff and the costume recorded in a studio. The video was filmed by Riku Kankaro and the sound designer was Eduard Tampu.
The costume was designed and sewn by Tiina Majabacka, based on historical sewing techniques and patterns. The sewing process took over a year with the hand sewing of the jacket alone taking months. The costume represents the style of the late 16th century and is a combination of various influences from the fashion of the era. Noblewomen used to wear black velvet-covered masks to protect their faces from the sun, which made them mysterious and mute. The costume is made of natural materials, wool, linen, silk and horsehair, adding their own mixture of smells to the clothing. The ruff was hand-sewn using ramie fabric that was already used in ancient Egypt. Traditionally, ruffs were made of linen but nowadays it is almost impossible to find linen that is of high quality and sufficiently thin for a ruff.
Due to their fragility, only a small number of original ruffs have survived in museums around the world. Tiina Majabacka has studied and photographed two of them. The collections of the National Museum of Finland include a part of a ruff estimated to date back to the early 17th century. Livrustkammaren in Stockholm has a lace-decorated ruff from around 1620.
“The Sound Memory of the Ruff” is Majabacka’s artistic thesis for the multidisciplinary master’s program Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art (ViCCA) at the Aalto University Department of Art and Media. The work is the second part of Majabacka’s series dealing with historical and forgotten sounds of costumes, the first part being “The Shrivelled Recitative” (2020).
Tiina Majabacka (b. 1980) works with video art and costume design. Her videos are short film-like and performative and use elements of improvisation. Her works contain complex references to, for example, the history of fashion and art, literature and film. She earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the Arts Academy of the Turku University of Applied Sciences in 2019.
Video 13:15 min. (2024)
Director, scriptwriter and producer: Tiina Majabacka
Assistant director: Jenni Kankaro
Costume design and sewing: Tiina Majabacka
Cinematographer: Riku Kankaro
Sound designer: Eduard Tampu
Edit: Tiina Majabacka
Color: Koldo Toribio
Thank you
Finnish Cultural Foundation, Kansan Sivistysrahasto and Aalto University’s Department of Media
Contact details
tiinamajabacka.portfoliobox.net
