Maria Sirén receives the Young Golden Award of Costume Design

Maria Sirén has won the Young Golden Award of Costume Design at an international costume design competition. Sirén will travel to the award ceremony in Beijing at the beginning of November and her award-winning works will be on display 4–9 November in an exhibition at the Central Academy of Drama art university as part of the Beijing International Biennale.

The competition is organized by the International Stage Art Network ISTAN. For the first time, the organization now organized a competition for Stage Artists. The categories in the competition were costume design and makeup design. Each category included a professional series and a series for students and young designers.

The work Sirén participated in the competition with in spring 2018, was a co-production between the Uniarts Helsinki’s Theatre Academy and Aalto University. The work was part of the Dance as a Total Form of Art course, where choreography students work together with dancers, lighting and sound designers, and costume designers. The course is held every two years and it is an important event in the universities.

In her work, Sirén used thermochromic colors changing their color with temperature. As a result, movement causes changes in the pattern of costumes, as the performer’s body warms up. Bagpipes were also having a significant role in the visual look. They inspired Sirén to design a costume including a bagpipe that changed the dancer into a moose of a national fairy tale (Hiiden hirvi).

The winning work was Maria Sirén's MA costume design for the Department of Film, Television and Scenography. Sirén graduated from Aalto University last summer. Sirén is also a designer and she has worked as a costume designer with dance and theatre.

For more information:

Costume Designer Maria Sirén, +358 40 5951 053, maria@mariasiren.com
www.mariasiren.com

About the Competition