An Attic of Memories
November 26, 2008
Over the years we have collected an impressive amount of creativity. If we consider just portfolios, we've got over 8000 now! Who would be so crazy to throw them away? They represent the hopes and dreams of young talents and we consider them our most precious treasure.
A couple of years ago we also started collecting the actual outfits, accessories and photography projects from our finalists. This allowed us to go from the portfolio - that explains the starting point, the inspiration and the amount of work behind the project - to its actual physical translation. All of this material is an amazing resource, that literally narrates the history of young creativity in the last decade. It couldn't remain hidden from the rest of the world, and we certainly didn't want this to happen. That's why we decided to open our archive to the public, setting it up as a dynamic museum that grows year by year (every new edition of ITS increases the amount of archived creativity by at least 50 pieces...).
The ITS#ARCHIVE is a really special place for us and we have taken our time to make it as beautiful as possible, since it is a place for beautiful dreams and beautiful objects. When you enter it, you feel as if time has stopped. There's old refurbished furniture, piles of white drawers on a wall with accessories sticking out, pieces from old ITS exhibition set-ups and water pipes used as hangers for the outfits...It looks like an old Victorian museum storage room.
The archive is the physical essence of ITS. It doesn't only represent a sort of timeline of young creativity. It shows what we have been fighting for during all of these years. There's lives behind it, from all over the world. Evidence of people who don't accept the given order of things and try to find new paths, new trails on the avenues of expression. People who deserve exposure and support. Hundreds of faces of young talents we have met travelling around the world from school to school.
It's a mystical special place for us that holds an energy that moves us from within, because it represents in an amazing visual feast the incredible amount of work we've done and still keep doing: A small team of crazy young people led by an even crazier visionaire who wants to see young talents - no matter their gender, native language, country or whatever classification might come to mind - gathered together in one single place. A place where their dreams could receive the deserved attention, where the energy of sharing, comparing and communicating could flourish and explode. The starting point to go on and live those dreams, and change the given order of things.
The ITS#ARCHIVE is the place where this story is told. Everything is neatly classified and displayed to make consultation and research as easy as possible. The space has become insufficient now, and one of the main projects for the future is to transfer the archive to a bigger location with dedicated areas for each creative field involved.
We want our archive to become a precious inspirational resource for designers, companies and whoever's interested in creativity. We want it to travel around the world, we want to show it to as may people we can reach. We want to do travelling exhibitions, we want to lend pieces for photo shoots, we want to collect more pieces from all creative fields.
ITS just the beginning....
