A poem. Material research. An object personified on paper.
The Girl Gone Authentic Atelier works with artists, artisans and independent hospitality houses whose work is shaped by relationships with place, material, heritage and craft, and by the exchange of ideas across cultures.
Bringing together formal training in strategic communications and an intuitive, cross-cultural approach to creative inquiry, the Atelier works across writing, cultural research and narrative development. Through a close reading of the ideas, intentions and sensibilities behind a project, we find language that brings its world into view while remaining faithful to the vision that gave rise to it.
Working with Girl Gone Authentic
I
Tune In
When working with natural materials, inherited traditions and the many expressions of being human, ideas often sit between past and present, instinct and intention, and what we inherit and what we hope to make of it.
Girl Gone Authentic offers an hour-long conversation over virtual tea, a space to sit with an idea, explore the thinking behind a project or consider a new direction. Together, we look closer, follow unexpected connections and draw out the threads that might otherwise remain unseen, bringing greater clarity to the thought at the heart of the work.
Writing and Expression
Every piece of work has its own character, and language has a way of bringing it into focus. An eclectic collection calls for words with curiosity and spirit; a place shaped by nature, language that breathes; an object, perhaps, a poem of its own.
Guided by intuition, cultural research and formal training in strategic writing, Girl Gone Authentic works across literary and commissioned projects, from poems and essays to books, brochures, collection texts and exhibition writing. Attentive to the ideas, references and intentions behind each project, we find language that gives expression to its vision without losing the qualities that make the work distinctly its own.
III
Research
The stories beneath the surface.
Why does a material matter here? What can an object tell us about the people who made it, the place it came from or the time it belongs to? What ideas and influences find their way into a collection?
Girl Gone Authentic explores the histories, practices and cultural references surrounding the things we make and live with. Through archival discoveries, conversations with makers and the study of materials, places and traditions, research follows a subject beyond the familiar, uncovering connections and perspectives that bring greater depth to a project and the ideas behind it.
The Atelier is led by Khumoetsile Seamogano.
For commissions and collaborations:
hello@girlgoneauthentic.com
Gathered references worded by
Girl Gone Authentic
They toil and tumble through time. Eloquent in beauty now as they were 700 years ago. Stones thoughtfully selected to arouse sensual intimacy with their owner. See how they blush? They know things.
Korean string beads, ca. 1392-1910. CMA, Korean Art.
Three suns for the boy king.
Nephrite. Lapis. Chalcedony.
A trinity of gods sealed in stone,
bound by gold that remembers every prayer.
Rings from the Tomb of Tutankhamun, Egyptian Museum.
The body remembers. A married Dinka woman traditionally wears incised ivory earrings. The scars on her temple follow the graceful arc of cow horns. They are an elaborate part of culture, a mark of beauty, adulthood, and belonging. Africa Adorned by Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher.
We live amongst saints on secret missions.
Mothers and daughters kissed by the moon’s glow.
Portals planted between this world and that beyond the veil.
Madagascar Pierrot Men (2000)
Elegance quietly dresses womanhood.
Womanhood is a song heard by those who have been initiated into the cults of confidence, courage, femininity, quiet strength, bottomless love, echoes of wisdom. Those who are not afraid to live. Those who nourish and birth the beautiful where there was nothing. We the brave.
“Why, Nagla, do you wear earrings and tie blossoms in you hair? Why do you blacken your teeth and paint your forehead?”
The young bachelor laughed. “Because it is what our girls like!”
Visual: Mru people of Bangladesh. National Geographic, 1973.
Sentimental value.
Common everyday objects that in time will be valuable collectables on display at the highest bidder’s home. In a way, so long as their story is not sensationalised to fit a certain gaze, the thought is not as unsettling as i initially thought it would be. That is afterall how stories of a people transcend time.
Mortar in-situ, Botswana, Khumoetsile Seamogano
Bamboo tales.
“Bamboo vests were worn to allow for ventilation beneath the thick and heavily embroidered wedding garments. As wedding robes were often made from delicate silk, bamboo vests would have prevented sweat stains and fabric damage.”
An old bamboo vest from China, found in Indonesia (1930 – 1940). Perenakan Museum.