As much as it may sound bizarre and puzzling, the words "sustainability" and "eco-friendly" are more used by polluters than by planet loving activists. Fast fashion retailers and powerful fashion groups have indeed appropriated the terms, but they often use them to attract the attention of the media or to prove to consumers they are not as guilty as we may think.
Yet to be genuinely sustainable and eco-friendly, such companies should maybe go back to the roots of their products and explore exhibitions like the one currently on at the TextielMuseum in Tilburg.
"Earth Matters" - curated by revolutionary fashion thinker and trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort with Philip Fimmano, her collaborator at Edelkoort Exhibitions - explores new design solutions that protect and respect the earth's resources.
The event features around 40 designers and is divided into four sections - "Understanding Origins", "Collecting Ingredients", "Reinventing Materials" and "Sustaining Production" - and hopes to give visitors a better understanding of the sustainable production cycle while exploring also the importance of material studies.
Irenebrination readers may be familiar with some of the designers included in this event: a few of them were indeed also part of "Touch Base", an exhibition organised by the Design Academy Eindhoven during Milan Design Week, while we mentioned others in previous design posts.
"Earth Matters" opens with a key issue for today's consumers – looking at the identity of a product and therefore getting to know the name of a fiber, the face of the artisan or the name of the weaver who made something with that fiber, or the person who works in an industrial plant where a specific product is manufactured.
The opening section focuses therefore on material studies and on companies aiming for more transparency in the production processes.
The second part is particularly interesting for those designers and researchers who love experimenting with organic ingredients since it suggests that it is possible to find unusual local materials to create innovative products that can significantly reduce environment pollution. At the same time this part encourages visitors to re-evaluated genuine handmade crafts.
The core of the third section is formed by products made with reusable, recyclable and biodegradable materials composed from waste, or re-produced by natural and synthetic ingredients, while the last part concentrates on sustainable production processes juxtaposed to the polluting production of textiles in our days.
Several projects and products investigate the properties of individual plants with designers turning into botanists or exploring the depths of the seas to discover new materials.
Sarmīte Polakova explores for example the world of pine trees and reuses the soft leather-like material hiding under its bark; Tamara Orjola works instead on "forest wool", a vegetable material made with pine tree needles. Once processed, crushed, soaked, steamed, and pressed the needles can indeed be transformed into textiles, composites and paper, stools and carpets.
Diana Scherer transforms instead the root system of plants into an intricate tapestry with visually striking results proved by her rugs characterised by architectural patterns.
The pieces made with natural materials harvested from the sea are particularly intriguing, they include "Oki Naganode" by Julia Lohmann, a large installation made of Japanese Naga seaweed over a modular frame of cane and aluminium, and "Sea Me" by Nienke Hoogvliet, a rug made of sea algae yarn, knotted by hand in an old fishing net.
In some cases the designers created new materials imitating an existing one, in other cases an organic material was deeply transformed: Sanne Muiser's "second skin" calls to mind fur but it is made by needle-punching natural materials such as wool and sisal into a man-made latex base, creating in this way juxtapositions beween the natural and synthetic worlds.
Moving from the meanings and symbolism attributed to hair throughout the centuries and linking with ideas of modern beauty, Alix-Marie Bizet designed a series of garments using hair, hinting at the diversity of individuals, tackling democracy and equality in a society that is sadly becoming more and more racist. Sanne Visser also employs hair, but makes with this organic material incredibly resistant nets and ropes.
While these projects may be more experimental, the exhibition also includes more commercial, yet still unique products such as lamps by Dosa, a collaboration between Christina Kim & Mark Eden Schooley. Kim has been extensively researching new production ways and has been working for years with artisans and craftspeople going from the jamdani (fine cotton muslin) cloth weavers in Ahmedabad, India, to the Oaxacan fine-art paper makers in Mexico.
Another striking product is the intricate "CaCO3" stoneware by Laura Lynn Jansen and Thomas Vailly, a project carried out with scientists, geologists and craftsmen, revolving around the possibilities of cultivating or growing stone into a desired shape.
The designers create the inner structure of any desired object and let stone grow on it for weeks; the longer the object is left, the thicker and more random the structure becomes.
Fans of such cross-disciplinary projects will also enjoy Jólan van der Wiel's innovative plastic materials that employ magnetism and that led him to a collaboration with Iris van Herpen in her "Magnetic Motion" collection.
"This young century has brought about a moment of reflection and radical change, making up for a century of ecological abuse, consumption, greed and violence," writes Lidewij Edelkoort in the official press release. "At this point, we feel the urge to explore alternatives and use natural ingredients, which gives us hope for the future."
"Earth Matters" does exactly what Edelkoort states, offering a series of natural alternatives to our lives, but the event could also be considered as an ode to consuming less and cherishing more, thinking about the person who made what we are wearing or what we are using in our domestic environments and supporting that person. In a nutshell this exhibition tells a story of sustainable lives, crafts, innovation and dignity as well, a beautiful tale that risks of not being told if we do not change our collective collective behaviour.
Image credits for this post
1. "Out of Chaos" by Thomas Straub, 2006
Photo: Thomas Straub
2. Overview exhibition "Earth Matters"
Photo: Josefina Eikenaar/TextielMuseum
3. "Untitled" by DOSA, a collaboration between Christina Kim & Mark Eden Schooley
Photo: Josefina Eikenaar/TextielMuseum
4. "Untitled" by DOSA, a collaboration between Christina Kim & Mark Eden Schooley
5. "Forest Wool" by Tamara Orjola
Photo: Josefina Eikenaar/TextielMuseum
6. "Second prototype for with light series" by Friends of light
Photo: Josefina Eikenaar/TextielMuseum
7. "Interwoven" by Diana Scherer
Photo: Josefina Eikenaar/TextielMuseum
8. Overview exhibition "Earth Matters"
Photo: Josefina Eikenaar/TextielMuseum
9. "Hair by Hood" by Alix Bizet, 2015
Photo: Juliette Delforge
10. "A Story About A Pine Tree" by Sarmite Polakova, 2015.
Photo: Sarmīte Poļakova
11. "Oki Naganode" by Julia Lohmann
Photo: Josefina Eikenaar/TextielMuseum
12. "Sea Me" by Nienke Hoogvliet, 2014
Photo: Femke Poort
13. Overview exhibition "Earth Matters"
Photo: Josefina Eikenaar/TextielMuseum
14. "Tactile Corpuscles" by Sanne Muiser, 2014
Photo: Studio Pluis
15. "The new age of Trichology" by Sanne Visser
Photo: Josefina Eikenaar/TextielMuseum
16. "CaCO3" by Laura Lynn Jansen & Thomas Vailly, 2014
Photo: Floor Knaapen
17. "Magnetic Shoe" by Jolan van der Wiel, collaboration with Iris van
Herpen, 2014
Photo: Yannis Vlamos
18. and 19. Overview exhibition "Earth Matters"
Photo: Josefina Eikenaar/TextielMuseum
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