Refugee Only are two costumes that look more like a shelter than garmentt, one is made out of textiles for the common people (picture on the left), and a leather one with fancy buckles for the elite. These shelters refer to the current global reality of migration in which everybody has to be ready to become a refugee.

Regarding garments as symbolic and physical ways in which we negotiate group and personal identities, Mella Jaarsma creates costume installations out of animal skins, badges, cocoons (picture on the right), uniforms, hand-drawn batik and other culturally loaded materials. Covering the body and leaving only the eyes and sometimes the hands exposed, are they shelter or prison, or both?