On January 2010, Rossina Bossio met with Swedish artist and costume designer Jonna Bergelin to work in an art book project inspired in the novels “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac and “Off the road” by Carolyn Cassady.
Most people have only heard of Kerouac’s book. In fact, the length of the articles found on Wikipedia illustrate how unpopular “Off the road” is compared to “On the road”. However, these books tell two sides of the same story: that of the “Beat Generation”, term used to designate a group of adventurous writers inspired by jazz, poetry, drugs, sex, eastern religion, hedonism and a general rejection of mainstream western values.
Jack Kerouac wrote his book as one of the “Beat Generation” bunch. Carolyn Cassady, on the other hand, wrote hers as the wife and mother of 3 kids of Neal Cassady, another writer from the same group. In her novel, she reveals the not-so-cool side of the story, taking down the myth of the ‘wonderfully indomitable beatniks’.
Jonna Bergelin designed the clothes, inspired by the the figure of Cassady, and together with Rossina Bossio they created a series of photographs that resulted in a book titled “Comme des Filles”. The book was exhibited at Stockholm, Sweden Gallery Grafiska Sällskapet on April 2010.
