A Second Skin Exhibition

About the Project

Playing on the notion of duality, the exhibition brought together two distinct artistic voices, Patricia Millns and Una Burke, offering a profound exploration of how opposing forces coexist. Millns’ large site-specific installations, are created from recycled teabags and stitched by hand in a rythmic flow at the artist’s studio. Weaving hidden stories and personal narratives into each piece, the bags are tranformed into grounded, dress-like forms that spoke of memory and the collective human experience.

‍

Meanwhile, Una Burke, renowned for designing the leather accessories featured in the acclaimed movie The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, sculpts seemingly ethereal leather sculptures, delicately shaped and suspended, that exude fluidity, lightness, and the notion of transformation. Each piece embodies the tension between strength and fragility, inviting a dialogue on transformation and the layers that shape identity.

This exhibition became a space to reflect on second skin, not just as clothing, but as the unseen layers we create, both visible and invisible, the stories we carry, and the connections that define us. Through these works, we delved into the tension between what binds and what frees, what grounds us and what elevates.

‍

In April 2016, A Second Skin was invited to Paris-Sorbonne Abu Dhabi, where it was inaugurated by H.E. Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak, UAE Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, as part of the opening program of the Annual Arab Knowledge Forum. This exhibition became a space for reflection, dialogue and deeper exploration fostering connections between cultures and ideas, highlighting how art, like skin, can serve as both a barrier and a bridge, shaping our shared humanity.