Me and my Tights - I

by Kaj

Our Finnish contributor, Kaj, tells how he came to make public his secret interest in wearing tights. The second part of his article (which actually tells the story of his youthful introduction to tights) will follow shortly.

The winter 2005-2006 I took part in the Finnish artist and photographer Harri Larjosto's project named 'Touch – Extended Portraits'. I was one of the 29 persons whom the artist had asked to write a story about something that had been a turning point, an event or a process that had made an impact on his/her life, fate and personality, had left a life-long trace, a scar. The texts he received were about accidents, drug addiction, violence, faith and the writer's relationship to the body, but also about young love, sexual identity, obsessions, and an important hobby. Larjosto used the stories to make a portrait of each person. As elements for the pictures he used the allusions and moods of the texts, the thoughts and associations they awakened in him. He took apart the situation told by the writer and reassembled the pieces into a new work using free association. Apart from the persons themselves, Larjosto was interested also in their environment and their objects, devices familiar from his other work. The result was portraits of settings in two or three parts, where the person and his or her physical environment are one. The art was in the interaction between the images and the stories.

The project was realized both as a exhibition at the Amos Anderson Art museum in Helsinki and as a book. My portrait and story was also included in an another, a sort of cross cultural exhibition 'Unmentionables – Men's Underwear Culture' at the Helsinki City Art Museum.

You can guess that my story told about 'me and my tights'. There was lot of publicity round the exhibition and I was both invited to participate in a talk show and I was interviewed to a radio programme, the picture and the text was published in magazines etc. I had well prepared my family, relatives, colleagues and friends for what to come. Actually, this was the first time I talked to someone else than my wife about my addiction to tights. It had been a tough part although I have always been a very extrovert and open. I just found the Larjosto project an excellent way to tell about this hidden side of my personality.

And it became a great relief. Soon after the opening of the exhibition and all the gained publicity all friends and acquaintances, enemies and even strangers I met on the street or who wrote to me made comments. The whole new situation helped me to strip off the unnecessary drama caused by my addiction to tights. The tights were secularized and I was free from my doubts and own boundaries.

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