Designer Rad Hourani challenges gender with new show, Neutrality
Montreal designer and photographer breaks gender lines in new art exhibit
Rad Hourani is a Montreal-based designer, photographer and artist with a new exhibit at the Arsenal Contemporary Art Centre. The showing, called Neutrality, includes photography, painting, video and sculptures with a selection of his ready-to-wear clothing line.
The multidisciplinary aspect of the exhibit reveals an artist free of traditional constraints and, as he identifies it, not "caged in any one discipline."
"I didn't understand who decided that a man should be dressed differently than a woman and all of these other limitations that we have in life like our age, gender, religion, nation or any other boundaries that divide people from each other," Hourani said in an interview with Cinq-à-six host Jeanette Kelly.
Hourani became the first and only unisex designer ever to show at the prestigious Paris Couture Fashion Week. In an interview following the Paris show, he credits growing up in Montreal with providing the inspiration for his work.
"I think the newness of Montreal made me free to do what I wanted. I think Paris inspired me to not just do things to do things because there is such a history and a profound uniqueness. It forced me to make my own style. Canada gave me the freedom to just start and do something because there isn't that history."
Neutrality runs until Jan. 17, 2016 at The Arsenal.