Football x Fashion

Where do the worlds of haute couture and football intersect? For the Art + People festival, our resident Ahilan Ratnamohan brings these two (Brussels-based) communities together. Just as in the performances Klapping and Le Maillot - One Size Fits All, the performance artist here departs from the context of theatre and scrutinises the world of fashion and design.

There are applause from the VIP grandstand, flashing photo cameras and an array of grandiose costumes. Football x Fashion effortlessly mimics a fabulous runway and the show proves to be anything but superficial. Between the thumping beats, Ratnamohan winks critically towards the dubious ethics of sports giants like Nike, Adidas or Puma. All the models here are footballers, and the fashion consists of upcycled football kits with a high DIY content, made by designers with different skill levels. Ratnamohan seeks an answer to the question ‘who gets to participate in these two worlds, and who should be benched?'

• Ahilan Ratnamohan creates cross-disciplinary performances in collaboration with non-classically trained performers. After attempting a professional football career in Europe, he has focused on performing arts since 2007, first in Sydney and later from Antwerp.

With sport and language learning as his main interests, he is developing three trajectories in his practice: research into the choreography of football; research into the performativity of language lessons; and collaboration with the Star Boy Collective. Ratnamohan is currently Kaaitheater artist-in-residence.