FROM THE FILES
For “Explorers of Space and Mind”
Tavares Strachan’s B.A.S.E.C. Flight Jacket
Kate Irvin
Tavares Strachan (RISD BFA 2003, Glass), designer
b. 1979 in Nassau, Bahamas; works in New York and Nassau
B.A.S.E.C., design label
Ella Strachan, seamstress
B.A.S.E.C. (Bahamas Aerospace and Sea Exploration Center) Bomber Jacket, 2020
Cotton, nylon, polyester, spandex and silk plain weave; rib-knit trim; cotton plain-weave ikat-dyed lining
Center back length: 63.5 cm (25 in.)
Gift of Rosanne Somerson, RISD President 2015-2021 2021.92
Conceived by Bahamian interdisciplinary artist Tavares Strachan (RISD BFA 2003, Glass) as part of a multifaceted speculative project and capsule collection, this jacket was originally packaged alongside four containers holding substances that, when combined, have the potential to “launch an object into the stratosphere.” Text inscribed on the Plexiglas box holding the raw ingredients for rocket fuel—Bahamian sugarcane, saltpeter, corn syrup, and air—warns: “Caution: Combine ingredients at your own risk. Highly flammable when mixed.”
Released from the presentation box, the bomber or flight jacket—per its original WWI form—unfolds like an armor, its shimmering metallic outer layer suggesting deflection and protection as well as referring to the shielding layers of high-tech spacesuits designed for astronauts. Is this jacket meant for our protection here on earth (as we mix rocket fuel)? Or might it be a proclamation of heights already achieved, as well as those awaiting our exploration? Patches adorning the front and sleeves suggest the latter, marking past missions undertaken by the Bahamas Air and Sea Exploration Center (B.A.S.E.C.). Strachan launched the project in 2008 after training as a cosmonaut in Russia, with the purpose of engaging Bahamian youth in scientific inquiry through experiments like sugarcane rocket launches and underwater rover missions, as well as access to visiting scientists.
Tavares Strachan, B.A.S.E.C. (Bahamas Air and Sea Exploration Center) Bomber Jacket in its presentation box, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery.
The hazy blue and yellow resist-dyed pattern of the jacket’s cotton lining lends an earthiness that ties it back to the world of its makers, in particular the earth, sand, sky, and sea of the Bahamas. Presented first at the Copenhagen International Fashion Fair in 2019, followed by an exhibition during Men’s Fashion Week in Paris, the jacket is one of a limited-edition series Strachan developed in conversation with his mother, Ella, a talented seamstress who suggested making clothing as a way to further engage Bahamian youth in exploration. Each jacket was handmade in Nassau by local women overseen by Ella Strachan, and proceeds from their sale support educational programs for women, including sewing and fashion design, with some sales also supporting hurricane relief.
Cautionary words printed over the compartment holding the ingredients for rocket fuel are balanced by text that urges us to become “explorers of space and mind”:
For most mortals life is conducted on the thin crust that separates the compressed depth of the unknown from the expansive horizons of knowledge. For islanders the secrets of the ocean and the sky above are a visceral part of that everyday experience. They lap on our shores, beckoning us to explore limits and to venture beyond our confines. Always present, they are the allure of the free-dive, the seduction of the free-fall. They are the rites of passage that take us through the different densities of experience to arrive at a place where we are no longer bound by physics, no longer bound by language, no longer tethered to an earthly crust. [B.A.S.E.C.’s] . . . mission is to give rise to new kinds of visibility, and archaeology of the future with equal appeal to explorers of space and mind.
This work was donated to the RISD Museum by RISD president emerita Rosanne Somerson, who received it as a gift from the artist. Edible and liquid ingredients are a hard sell for placement in museum storage under any conditions, and this work’s toxic and highly flammable components meant that we were not able to take the full package for the collection. The project’s texts, concept, and photo documentation are, however, retained in the museum’s object files and database, and the inspiration and narrative remain in the folds of the jacket itself.
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