An exhibition examining the environmental impact driven by the collective responsibility of global fashion consumption.
Most garments produced and purchased today are worn only a few times before being discarded. Despite major fashion companies' promises to reuse and recycle, vast amounts of clothing still end up in landfills, or washed up on beaches in the Global South. A year ago, Greenpeace Africa activists visited a beach in Accra, Ghana, collecting a fraction of the thousands of tons of discarded clothing polluting the coastline. These garments were then sent back to the countries where they were originally sold as new. From this fraction, three garments were selected as the foundation for the project “THREE WAYS TO BE COMPLICIT” by Anna Lidström, Gustav Martner, and Jonas Larsson. This project uses the garments as artistic material to explore three different perspectives on our shared responsibility in the environmental crisis and the global impact of the fashion industry.
JACKET-AS-A-UTOPIA: One of the garments has been washed, repaired, re-dyed, and meticulously and artistically restored into a beautiful piece, once again wearable by the same social group that had previously discarded it. This jacket will be available for festival visitors to rent via a mobile app, allowing them to showcase it as they wish—on social media or in any other way they choose. The garment symbolizes hope for alternative solutions, suggesting that just as we can mend a torn piece of clothing, we can also repair the world. At the same time, it serves as a powerful tool, sending a novel fashion message to the world.
BEARING WITNESS: The second garment remains dirty, moldy, and smelly. Uncompromisingly, it carries the traces of the landfill it was retrieved from. It serves as an uncomfortable testimony to the reality we have created. It offers no solutions, nor does it provide false hope or distractions—it simply presents the truth. As it is.
THIS IS NOT HOW THE STORY ENDS: With the third garment, the creators of the work seeks to find a path that avoids both hopelessness and utopian distractions.
