Visual artist and ambassador for the COSTA RICA Essential Country Brand, Man Yu will be the guest artist at the 25th anniversary of Costa Rica Fashion Week (CRFW) 2026, where she will present “Closet Humano Fashion Show,” a stage production that transcends the traditional runway to become an artistic manifesto on the body, identity, and the transformation of matter.
As part of the “20 años Man Yu”series, the project offers an interdisciplinary experience that integrates contemporary performance and fashion design into a runway format. Under the premise that “matter is not created, it is transformed into art,” the work shifts the artistic gesture from the public space to new exhibition contexts and platforms of visibility.
Act I: Performance “EVO: Wandering Body”
Under the direction of Man Yu, performer David Fung opens the experience by exploring the existential nature of being through movement and his interaction with large-scale symbolic attire. EVO, a recurring character in the artist’s universe, is portrayed as a body in transition between matter, identity, and transformation.
Act II: “Closet Humano Fashion Show”
The work evolves into a conceptual runway show developed in collaboration with the National Institute of Learning (NIL), where designers who have graduated from the textile and clothing program present original pieces—designed and crafted by themselves—that transform the material through their own artistic language. Each proposal starts with the same raw material: the museum fabric used in the performance-happening “No soy este traje” (2019), a large-scale action carried out in a public space that involved more than a hundred naked bodies.
The result is a runway where a single starting point gives rise to multiple approaches, highlighting the diversity of perspectives, techniques, and visions within a new generation of designers. Each design offers its own interpretation, while the collection as a whole expands that experience into a collective dimension, where body, costume, and fabric coexist on the same stage. The fabric, brought to life once again, ceases to be a mere record and becomes a presence.
“Man Yu is one of the first women we have named as an ambassador for esencial COSTA RICA, and we recognize how her work helps highlight the talent and creative capacity that Costa Rica projects to the world and that inspires new generations of Costa Rican artists. Her participation in Costa Rica Fashion Week, with a proposal that integrates art, fashion, and talent, reflects that drive toward innovation and the development of national talent,” said Adriana Acosta, Director of esencial COSTA RICA.
“Closet Humano Fashion Show” has established itself as a space where art, fashion, and academia converge on a single stage, fostering collaboration between academic training, artistic creation, and professional practice. The initiative bridges the educational and cultural spheres, integrating designers into a real-world context of visibility and production.
More than a runway, it is an active platform where clothing, the body, and materials come together to demonstrate that artistic creation is not static, but rather a collective process in constant development.
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