And the MoMu Award Goes to... Jinny Song

Every year, MoMu awards the work of a master student at the Fashion Department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp with a prize for graphic quality. This year, the museum presents not one but two MoMu Awards. One goes to Jinny Song for her graduation collection Mother's Milk.

JINNY SONG: "Last year, I returned to Los Angeles for the first time in four years. I was shocked at how much older my parents had become. I saw them in a completely different light, and realised how vulnerable they actually are. This insight was accompanied by a flood of emotions: regret, pain, sadness but, above all, the love I had kept somewhere deep inside all this time."

"This moment was the starting point of everything: I wanted to make a collection for my mother. A collection about the love and healing process between a mother and her child. Besides my own story, the Venus of Willendorf is a central inspiration. This prehistoric figure with exaggerated reproductive body parts is the primal symbol of motherhood."

JS: "There are a lot of exaggerated curves and circles in the collection. These shapes refer to another important theme: intergenerational trauma. Working with different layers of tulle allowed me to represent its depth and layering. With the threads falling down, I refer to my tears and the emotions I felt."

JS: "I always start from drawings to capture the energy of my designs. In this case, they were portraits in which I processed my emotions. There are very playful elements in them, but the eyes always tell a different story. When you look at the collection, you recognise the shapes and colours that mask the melancholic aspect."

Jinny Song’s collection imagery is on display at MoMu Café through early February 2025, when Peiwen Mao, the second MoMu Award winner, takes over the lightboxes to present her MA collection Made in jungle.