طنجة Tangier, Morocco (Copyright © Rachid Ouettassi, 2002)
Shirts circulate.
They show up in places far from where they originate.
On local pitches, in city squares, at markets, worn by people with- or without direct connection to the club or nation.
As they move, they extend forms of recognition across contexts, entering everyday spaces and becoming visible beyond its original context.
A SPATIAL ARTEFACT
The football shirt is approached here as a spatial artefact: not simply as branding, nor only as identity, but as a carrier of visual culture shaped by football’s inherent (geo-)political state. Structured through national narratives, contested territories, migration, exclusion, and claims to recognition. The shirt condenses these conditions into a visible, wearable form.
When worn, it produces a precise territorial inscription. It marks a body, and a position in space. Or broader, whitin a spatial and political field. As it circulates, it maps a dispersed geography of affiliation; one that does not redraw borders, but makes certain alignments visible.
The work sits between design and critical spatial analysis. On one hand, it acknowledges the language of contemporary sportswear as a serious cultural medium. On the other, it examines how that medium participates in the production of space: how sovereignty can be rehearsed, suggested, or staged through circulation rather than law or formal governance.
RESEARCH + CONCEPT
Lotte van Hulst
PHOTOGRAPHY
Lotte van Hulst
STYLING ADVICE
Reira Yoshimori