In the previous post we looked at a project recycling digital and physical waste by an Artificial Intelligence. Let's continue the thread but get human again with the recycling project "PLOT | DetoxCirculArt". Launched today during Milan Design Week, the project was the result of a collective effort by the Prato-based Italian Detox Consortium, the artist Francesca Pasquali and students from the Accademia Costume&Moda (Costume & Fashion Academy).
Aimed at young people and consumers, the work is a large collaged patchwork of 350 Kg of materials from the productive plants of the companies forming the Consortium (in particular from the following company's stocks: Antilotex Flock Italia, Archè, Azeta Filati, Berto Industria Tessile, Candiani Denim, Casati Flock, Emmetex, Progetto Lana, Lanificio Dell'Olivo, Texcene, Texmoda, Jersey Mode).
The installation incorporates woven, knitted and knotted yarns, textiles, samples and swatches forming a chromatic landscape with a strong tactile quality about it. The term "plot" is usually employed in books and films, but here it hints at the woven "plot" of the textiles forming a new story, telling a tale of recycling and regeneration, but also offering a sensorial and tactile experience in a post-Covid world that is learning to "touch" things again.
The work is the culmination of a workshop dedicated to creative recycling and to the opportunity of giving new life to old materials, promoting in this way a sustainable production of textiles and garments. The workshop touched upon a variety of themes, including the possibility of creatively reusing recycled materials and producing in this way unique items that acquire a higher value compared to the original materials used to make them.
During the workshop students looked at the cycles of textile production, and analysed various sustainability strategies of the companies forming the Detox Consortium, visiting the industrial plants with Pasquali. The artist is well-known for her experimental fashion collections in which she recycles and regenerates clothes decorating them with colourful prints made from waste materials used for her sculptures.
Rather than the final result that seemed a bit too naive (and may have benefited from working with textile artists who are more knowledgeable in specific techniques such as tufting), the most important aspect of this project is the message behind it, aimed at raising awareness about a circular economy and promoting an improved fashion system. The partners involved in the project - that is the companies behind the Consortium that donated the materials - are also very important.
After Greenpeace launched its Detox Campaign in 2011 inviting fashion houses and brands to commit to eliminate dangerous substances for human beings and the environment from their productions, textile companies in Prato started researching and measuring the levels of contamination during their manufacturing processes.
A group of Prato based companies eventually committed to Greenpeace's requests and, in 2016, they founded a Consortium to implement the detox process. As the years passed, the Detox Consortium expanded (at the time of writing this post there are 37 companies in the organisation), launching its own researches about levels of contamination of dying agents and other materials employed by the companies part of the Consortium.
"Plot" is open till 22nd July at Milan's Accademia Costume&Moda (so you can catch up with it if you're in town for the Design Week or the menswear shows), but, hopefully, the Consortium will donate more waste materials in future to other institutions to launch new educational and creative projects.
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