Artistic collaboration Maison Margiela × Birdhead
Maison Margiela CNY Collaboration
Maison Margiela collaborated with Shanghai-based photographic collective Birdhead for a Chinese New Year edition. Using CNY photographs, Birdhead layered time and memory under red light to create a festive visual tension.
Through photo collage, the collective reinterpreted New Year traditions by blending analog imagery with symbolic signs. Under the title “Under The Red Light”, the artwork pays tribute to analog photography and to those who preserve memories.
Darkroom-developed holiday prints were cut, recomposed, and finished with the character “Fu” (good fortune) painted on top. The artwork deconstructs festive memories and rebuilds them into a new visual universe.
Featuring limited-edition packaging alongside a hero movie, digital content, and retail activations, the project brought Birdhead’s artistic vision to life while reinforcing Maison Margiela’s avant-garde and conceptual identity.
- Design
Birdhead
Birdhead 鸟头 is a photographic collective founded in 2004 consisting of Song Tao and Ji Weiyu. Based on the aesthetic of the snapshot, the works of these two Shanghai-born-and-bred artists have earned them worldwide recognition. Analog photography is in the DNA of their work. BIRDHEAD captures fleeting moments of everyday life to offer a version of urban reality – idle youth, crumbling buildings, faded advertisements and other street scenes – that offers a striking contrast to the opulence of the Chinese megalopolis. The palpable tension in their work contrasts underlying reality with the kaleidoscopic diversity of life, while offering a profound reflection on the relationship between the material and the spiritual. Through their subjective representation, we witness live the changes of the city and its rapid development. By combining the photographic matrix, collage, a particular editing technique, etc., Birdhead creates a “Birdhead world” in various exhibition spaces and a humanistic environment. This immersive universe creates meaningful opportunities for creative brand collaborations.
OTHER WORKS
CNY and Valentine’s Day limited editions, translating the rose into a tactile universe of memory and scent.
Chinese New Year limited editions, bringing creative heritage to life.
A collector’s Zodiac limited edition where the Horse embodies the passage of time.
