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DESIGN | HERITAGE | ENVIRONMENT
ISSUE 17
Sculpting Wool
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Recycling Mixed Textiles
Designing a Sensibility for Sustainable Clothing The Colour of Algae
Straw Hats and Wetland Plants 1
Open Source Citizen-Led Architecture
Tackling Oil Sponsorship in the Arts and Culture Making Ecocide Law
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Contents ARTISANS 8.
Lasting Bridalwear
12. The Colour of Algae 18. Sculpting Wool 24. Straw Hats and Wetland Plants 28. Shoes that Changed the World 30. The Gallery Wall “A Misremembered Childhood” 34. Creative Practice by Chance and Discovery in the Isle of Arran
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Sally Blake
40. Tutorial by Fiona Doubleday 42. Using Potential Space to Explore the Human/Nature Relationship BUSINESS 52. How Sustainable are Biomaterials? 54. Designing Sustainable Communities with Open Source Citizen-Led Architecture 56. Innovations for Recycling Mixed Plastics 58. Ecological Solutions Inspired by Tradition: The Soap 60. Tips for Sustainable Jewellery-Making and Buying 62. Step by Step: Hammered Ear Climbers SOCIETY 66. Breaking Silence and Isolation One Pocket at a Time
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Fiona Doubleday
70. Eternity Pocket Tutorial 72. Cultivating Dye... How a Passion for Vegetable Dye Grew into the Idea for a Multi-Location Dye Garden 76. Circular Systems: The Case of Rapanui 78. Designing a Sensibility for Sustainable Clothing 80. Fighting Climate Change During School Exams 82. Advocating for The Earth. The Law According to Polly Higgins 84. “Stolen Land, Stolen Culture, Stolen Climate”: Tackling Oil Sponsorship of the Arts and Culture 89. Learning about CO2 in School
BOOK REVIEWS, UPCOMING EVENTS & MORE 90. The Organic Painter Book Review 90. Upcoming Exhibitions Highlighting Environmental Precariousness and Species Extinction: Alison Brown’s Artistic Journey
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Barbara Melling
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Dear Readers,
Silvia Ronconi
Welcome to the 17th edition of No Serial Number Magazine! As you may notice, we have made a few changes in preparation for the relaunch in 2020. We have now simplified the format, so there are now only three sections: Artisan, Business, and Society. The artisan section looks at the sphere of the handmade. Here we seek to go back to how things are made and where materials come from and how sustainable they are. In the business section we explore business models that put people and planet first. In the society section we look at how arts and culture are key to achieving positive change and how activists are increasingly putting pressure on governments to act urgently on the environmental crisis we are facing. The cover has also changed. We decided that Design | Heritage | Environment better reflects what we are doing with the magazine. A couple of updates: from the next issue you’ll be able to become a sponsor of No Serial Number Magazine. Please send us an email or visit our website if you’d like more information about this. Also, we are planning to create an online map of places where you can read No Serial Number Magazine for free. If you know of any spaces open to the public (public libraries, arts colleges, open studios, receptions of organisations, museums, art galleries, arts cafes) where you think No Serial Number Magazine would be cherished and displayed permanently for the public to consult, we are giving a limited number of copies away (including free UK delivery) at our discretion. These spaces will be added to an online map on our website with information on how to get there and relevant web links. If you can help us with this project do get in touch. This programme is also open to readers from outside the UK, but please note the recipient will need to pay shipping costs.
Mia Sylvia
Let us know what you think of the changes.
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All the best,
Alessandra & NSN Team
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ALESSANDRA PALANGE, EDITOR
I am a researcher in the social sciences and education with a keen interest in activism and social movements. Being the editor of No Serial Number Magazine is a hobby for me, something that I do out of passion and with the belief that there are many things we can do to make the world a better place, one of them is producing and consuming more responsibly as a society. If you’d like to propose a story for No Serial Number Magazine you can email me here: info@noserialnumber.org
FRANCESCA PALANGE, ART EDITOR
After many years working as a retail manager in the fashion industry, I became more and more passionate about eco printing and graphic design, so much so that I now help design the magazine.
ROSA ROSSI, NSN ITALY EDITOR
I am a retired Latin and Greek teacher and an avid knitter and crocheter. I have published school textbooks and work as a freelance writer for Pearson Italia. I am mainly in charge of finding eco-sustainable realities in Italy, where I am based, and writing about them. I also manage the Italian Blog of No Serial Number Magazine, so if you’re interested in No Serial Number Italia, please visit the blog it.noserialnumber.org or email me: noserialnumberitaly@gmail.com
Michelle Challice
Textile Designer specialising in the fructose indigo vat and biodegradable homewares. Recently relocated back home to Britain and works from a tiny natural dye studio on the Dorset coast. Loves her rescue dog Felek, African and Folk textiles and the British weather. Hates having her photo taken!
Holly Foat
As a freelancer, I’m passionate about supporting the local community and helping local businesses. I also work in ethical marketing, and enjoy promoting sustainable living and blogging about it. I’m a craft and upcycling enthusiast, especially textiles, although I rarely find the time to create as my two young children keep me busy! Blog: www.noserialnumber.org/directory/author/holly-foat Facebook: @EthicalByHeart Twitter: @CaptainHolly
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eam & Contributors
LOU HARVEY
Since 2010, Rubrica Services has offered fast, friendly and professional proofreading, copy-editing, SEO content, transcription, CV editing and other writing services to artists, academics and business. Find more information on our affordable, efficient service at rubrica.co.uk
FUSCHIA HATTON
Fuschia Hutton is a translator and copywriter dedicated to helping Italian businesses, organisations, and entrepreneurs communicate effectively with English-speaking audiences. Concern for the environment and society is a thread that unites many of the clients she works for. When not translating or writing copy, she enjoys sewing with vintage fabric and trying to find more ways to lighten her impact on the environment. Website: https://fuschiahutton.com/ Instagram: @fuschiahutton
Paige Perillat-Piratoine
I am especially interested in growing the urban fabric. From urban agriculture to biomaterials, I work with projects that contribute to a more organic cityscape and report on the people that make the steps in that direction.
JACQUIE ROSENBACH
A lover of greenery, flowers, rivers and blue skies. Sometimes a communications specialist, others a self-taught florist and writer.
Kate Stuart
I’m a practising artist, writer, craftswoman and environmental activist based in the North East of England. I specialise in upcycling, zero waste living, quilting and painting with acrylic on canvas. Website: www.thephoenixgreenstore.org Etsy Shop: www.etsy.com/uk/shopThePhoenixGreenStore Facebook and Instagram: @thephoenixgreenstore
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ARTISANS
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Lasting Bridalwear
Words by Paige Perillat-Piratoine Photography by MiaSylvia Here I am pictured in my absolute element, styling at a photoshoot and creating a bespoke backdrop for the ceremony. All fabrics are hand dyed by yours truly. Camilla Andrea Photography
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ou’ll most likely find Mia at a scrapyard sourcing odds and sods of discarded metal to make the rust colour you can see on some of her hand-dyed garments. She now has a big collection of rusty metal, a steampunk palette for natural-dye experiments. And Mia dyes the most sacred of garments - she mostly works on wedding dresses. Weddings are an important day in our lives, a rite of passage that marks the start of a new micro-era, and the preparation that goes into them is immense. Many spend countless hours planning for one splendid event, but it has a finite point in time, and all the beauty that has been gathered and arranged tends to
turn into one gorgeous pile of waste. Indeed, weddings tend not to be the most eco-conscious industry, perhaps understandably so. The market has not provided the easiest platform to plan consciously, and the stress involved in gathering families together can be overwhelming enough to bypass that priority. But Mia saw that it could be otherwise, and chose to offer an alternative to bridal customers. She makes it so that a dress that sparked so much joy on one day doesn’t have to spend the rest of its life in the cupboard. Mia repurposes vintage dresses and enhances them with natural pigment, creating something bespoke that can be worn time and time again. This eco-conscious attitude can be traced back to her childhood, which featured an abundance of time spent in charity shops, hunting upcycled furniture, and a make-andmend ethos. Outdoor trails and foraging for food have also long been a passion and have now translated into a study of plants for some of their other qualities: natural dyes. Mia studied art and developed a special interest in textiles - she specialised in embroidery and bead-works at first, but soon turned to natural dyes when she grew frustrated by the huge gap in education regarding sustainability in textiles. Thankfully, the university library provided books on African Shibori techniques and vast amounts of knowledge around the use of natural pigments. Eventually she took a placement with a local weaver, Aviva Leigh studios, who teaches these techniques. She studied with them intensively for two years, immersed in the joys of natural pigments and creating natural pastes for screen printing. She trialled and tested furiously, to the point that her methods were called “disturbingly obsessive”. But the insanity gave her a treasure: a vast catalogue of natural colours, and methods to achieve them. The idea of applying these methods to bridalwear came in a Eureka moment one night, a suggestion from a housemate. The idea clung to her skin and determined every project in her degree from then on. She is particularly influenced by the Victorian language of flowers, and its unique way of assigning symbolism to plants in order to narrate a garment. Her pieces each hide a secret Victorian poetry mixed with inspiration from pre-Raphaelite paintings. The common theme is romance and its hidden language of imagery.
Hand foraged flowers and plants from countryside walks. Scattered across organic cotton muslin, ready to be dyed Left image: A bundle dye. Pictured is turmeric, black turtle beans, dried hibiscus, red cabbage, onion skins and soda ash. Soda ash is an alkaline which reacts to the pH in red cabbage, turning the pigments green.
The process too is very romantic, and very emotional. At the start of a piece you’ll find Mia buried deep in a vintage shop, burrowing for the dresses that make her heart beat. 9
ISSUE 17 Once the dress has been found, the washing and premordanting process begins. This is a vital stage that washes away the dirt in the fibres and then coats the fibres so that the natural dyes don’t fade away when they are imprinted. Mia uses alum as a mordant, and each dress is washed and dried about four times and mordanted twice. While this is happening, she’ll create a mood-board for the dress which includes images, inspiration and details of the ingredients that will be used to create the colours. Sometimes inspiration hits with an obvious vision; at other times it is a case of planning methodically. Dresses can take various amounts of time to make - three days or six months. This is determined by the ingredients used. For example, dresses that are dyed with rust can take longer, as can those which are hand-embroidered. On some dresses Mia has screen printed love poems, another method that may take time. Dresses that are quicker to make follow a bundle-dyeing process. She gathers the ingredients (flowers, pigments, herbs, spices, food waste) and places them on the dress in specific patterns. The dress is then rolled up in a bundle to be slowly steamed. If the dress is wet after dyeing, the garment has to dry completely before hand-washing it cold. After its birth, each piece comes with its own care label. In fact, every single dress has a different process timescale, and the colours and pattern are always bespoke. One of Mia’s favorite projects is what she calls the “Gradus Amoris Dress”. This dress took six months to create, and perhaps what made it so special was how labor-intensive it was to create. The flowers used to dye this dress had been collected for half a year from celebrations, moving homes, and various gifts, as well as being seasonally foraged. The collection process was a true labor of love. And so was the making. The dress in itself was a 1940s piece made of silk from head to toe. The natural pigments she used soaked into the fibres beautifully (which is not always the case). Mia also hand-made the printing pastes with natural dyes and then screen-printed love poems onto the dress from Rupi Kaur’s book ‘Milk and Honey’, a personal favorite of hers. Once the dress was close to being finished, Mia hand-embroidered the bust with hand-dyed silk thread. This dress has since gone on to be seen at various exhibitions, shows, magazine and website editorials, and Tatler magazine. Mia is now hatching several plans, some of which she cannot share at present. For now what we can gather is that she is soon moving home, where she’ll be opening her studio for workshops, residencies and trunk shows. Another new development is that White Reflections Bridal in Norwich will be a new stockist for her creations. Perhaps most excitingly, an incredibly generous donation of twenty-five vintage dresses has come into her possession, which will leave Mia very busy for the next collections.
GET IN TOUCH WITH MIA Website: www.miasylvia.co.uk FB: @miasylviaa IG: @miasylviaa
EVENTS A collection of colour from spring ’18. Some of my personal and academic findings all collated into a pile.
Exhibiting at Soul Circus festival 2019 (workshops available soon) The 16th-18th of August 10
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A day in the life of Mia. An image captured of my work desk. Filled with foraged flowers, alder cones which create pretty peach tones, tissue paper which I use to package all orders.
Lillie pictured, wearing The Forsythia Garden Dress. The MiaSylvia SS18 Bridal wear Collection. Camilla Andrea Photography
MiaSylvia exhibiting at The Most Curious Wedding Show’19. Pictured are rust dyed shirts for the groomsmen and the SS18 & SS19 Bridal wear collection. 11
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Linen fibre dyed with microalgae. Porphyridium Purpureum (pink) Spirulina, Chlorella (green, green-blue), Nannochloropsis (yellow) 12
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Q&A: The Colour of ALgae Photography by Nost.algae and Jimimoku
Recently we came across the delicate colour range of Nost. algae. The images captured us immediately. We entered the site. We decoded the name. ‘Algae’ is a household name: it is Latin but also English. It is one of those Latin names merged directly into scientific language and, therefore, beyond linguistic boundaries. Nost.algae - a sort of crasis of the Latin expression ‘nostrae algae’ (our algae) - is particularly clever. Now we would like to know a little bit more because we feel that your work is close to us and our readers at No Serial Number Magazine. Destined for incredible developments in all fields (fashion, painting, and all activities that make use of colours), this is a “colourful” project which is extremely relevant today. Born just three years ago as part of a Masters in Textile Design at Chelsea College of Arts, the project has already led to the production of a first capsule collection and colour prototypes for different uses. We try to learn more from the protagonist of this adventure, Luisa Balaban.
When did you become interested in natural dyeing? I became interested in natural dyeing during my MA at Chelsea College of Arts. I was studying in London and my part time job was in Crussh, a natural juice bar in Nothing Hill - this is when I first came into contact with spirulina powder. I was very curious what was the actual origin of spirulina and I started reading and getting documentation about blue-
green algae. It absolutely blew my mind - there is such variety in terms of types of algae out there! There are green algae and red algae and blue-green and brown, yellow. I thought algae must be capable of offering this all-natural, renewable pigment. It soon became my main focus and obsession. I started experimenting with spirulina powder but it wasn’t as good as if I was working with the freshly harvested product. It took me another six months to get in contact with a variety of research labs across the country and abroad and to find Dr. Claudio Fuentes Grunewald from Department of Biosciences, College of Science, Swansea University/Prifysgol Abertawe, and to be able to experiment with different algae grown in the lab. How did you get the idea of investigating the possibility of extracting colour from microalgae? I was very intrigued by the blue-green colour of spirulina when in contact with water, and as I was already looking for something natural to work with on textiles I thought I should see what that blue pigment is all about. As you might know, the pigments are water-soluble and it might be difficult to maintain colour for a very long time. I am very interested to work with other strains of microalgae that might originate from more extreme environments, and therefore might be more performant in terms of pigment as well as other parameters. Tell us about your journey and your trials and errors. How were your first results and how did the process change as you experimented? Well, I first started with ten grams of spirulina taken from the shop I was working in. I was printing with that and the method changed during my experiments. Then I started working with commercial spirulina and after some months of endlessly and unsuccessfully looking for a very specific red algae called ‘haematococcus pluvialis’, or Asthaxantin, in all the aquaculture shops in London (thanks to my partner, James, who supported me during that time of failure and learning), I have reached the conclusion that my project can only advance if I collaborate with someone who works in a lab
Bulk fabric (pre production) Avocado shell and stone dyed 13
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see much of a difference. If printing with algae, you just have to use whatever binder you are comfortable with and to experiment. That is the key to the process: experimenting and recording what works best. Also, you need to add water to the blend when printing and to move fast as the printing paste thickens. You need to let the fabric settle for a few days before ironing at 30 degrees and manually rinsing.
After Dr. Claudio and I started to collaborate I had the chance to experiment with more than six different strains of algae, obtaining some very resourceful and interesting results. I am now mostly working with food-grade approved microalgae. Algae are generally recognized as safe for human consumption and I will, after summer 2019, diversify into other algal strains. I would really love to see this method upscaled and used by other brands.
Is the process of obtaining sufficient algae to extract the colours entirely sustainable? What are the pros and cons of this technique? I can only speak from the perspective of a designer working with the by-product of a laboratory that is using the algae compounds for different research purposes. I have visited the large photo bioreactors in Swansea and been through the process. The facility there is growing algae for European, UK and worldwide projects and research for a variety of purposes such as cosmeceuticals, the health industry, feed and other applications. During their growth period, algae release oxygen - this for sure is sustainable! They are then filtered through a membrane system and the water discarded back into the sea. Algae are known for purifying and treating wastewater. They are a solution to many pollutant agents and there is a city in the US = I believe it’s Missoula, in Montana - that uses microalgae to filter and purify the municipal wastewater. The company doing that is called CLEARAS Water Recovery and I was very impressed to see how largescale algae-growing facilities can clear municipal wastewater to such an extent.
Also, talking about my collaboration with Swansea University and how lucky I was to find such helpful collaborators, I would like to take the time to acknowledge Dr. Claudio and the team for the help, and to note the two projects our collaboration is part of: ALG-AD: Creating value from waste nutrients by integrating algal and anaerobic digestion technology and INTERREG North-West EuropeENHANCE microalgae: High-added value industrial opportunities for microalgae in the Atlantic Area. INTERREG Atlantic Area Later in my journey, I had the chance to present my practice during an international algae conference, at British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge University. This is where I met Professor Saul Purton from the Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology, and the director of the national network Algae-UK. We are in contact and investigating possible methods of disseminating the benefits of algae within the fashion, textile and other industries. Can you explain - in broad terms - the procedure? When dyeing with algae the vat must remain under certain temperatures. Each strain of algae has a different denaturation temperature so each algae needs to be treated differently. Generally, under 38 Celsius should be good. In general, the longer the vat goes, the better. Also mordants specific to each fabric can be used if you want but I couldn’t
You can think that your garment, as opposed to polluting water by the dyeing and finishing processes all textiles go through, would instead help reduce pollution. It is an entirely sustainable process and upscaling it would eventually mean more oxygen produced and more CO2 consumed by algae.
Different microalgae strains on fibre samples 14
NO SERIAL NUMBER Microalgae use CO2 to develop and grow. Perhaps the only resource used in the process is electricity to run the reactors, but that can be from renewable sources as well. And algae already captivate all sun and light.
facilitated the development of flora during The Great Oxygenation Event on planet Earth. Isn’t that fascinating? Spirulina is a type of cyanobacteria. What quantity of algae is needed to obtain sufficient colour for a garment, such as a top? It depends on the level of coverage, intensity of colour and how many times you dye it. I used about 30 grams to cover two meters of fabric with stripes. You can experiment and determine how much you need for whatever fabric you are using.
Is this a procedure to be done in the lab or can it also be practised by amateurs? What equipment is needed and what kind of precautions should be put in place? In order to work with freeze-dried powder you need to be able to work with someone that has access to a lab. However, if you go down the supermarket and buy a bag of Spirulina or Chlorella, blend it with some binder and print with it, you will get nice results. It is important to note that they do smell very strong. If you use the above algae that are already approved as food-grade safe you should have no issue with using it in your kitchen. It just smells. And do not keep the dye vat or the printing ink - that would go off pretty soon.
Does algae have the potential to become large-scale as a colour? Is this something you’re interested in or are you interested only in the artisanal method? In other words, what developments do you imagine for your colours from algae? I hope and believe they will become large-scale. This is why I started Nostalgae, to make the point that I can produce on an artisanal scale enough garments to have a collection. Hopefully this example and research can be mirrored by brands with more resources than I currently have. If I can work this on my own and with help from friends in a print studio in London, I am sure that resourceful brands can upscale it. However, if algae were to become a large-scale option, the brands willing to adopt it would need scientific collaboration. Where are you with your brand right now? I am currently launching Nostalgae’s Summer 19 collection and the e-commerce website in July. Putting together Nostalgae’s fist professional photoshoot is very exciting! There are some very simple and versatile designs, exclusively linen sourced from Europe and woven in Ireland. Stay tuned on Insta!
In No Serial Number Magazine we interviewed the founder of Living Ink, who told us a little bit about algae cultivation and how it is good for the environment. Can you tell us a little bit about your own research on this? Well, as I mentioned above, algae are a wastewater purifier they captivate renewable energy and turn it into very valuable compounds to be used in so many industries; they contain very high amounts of proteins that are very good for human consumption and in general for the environment. They are pretty much a zero-waste system. The so-called ‘biorefinery system’ stands for a way of recycling the water and all the other components of algae and using all the different nutrients from water for livestock feed, using algae for obtaining everything from artificial meat to pigments for the food industry. The application I have developed, for printed textiles, is only one of the very many possible applications. Current scientific research suggests that a type of cyanobacteria (and therefore photosynthesis) possibly
Do you print on materials other than textiles? If yes, tell us more. I print on paper - I do my own printed logo on purchase
Bi-Product of the food industry (avocado skins and stone pigment extraction)
Nost.algae tops branding 15
ISSUE 17 and mailer bags. Algae work very well on paper, as they are very stable. I remember trying with pink algae on paper - it works well. I do use other pigments as well; I am generally looking at by-products such as avocado skin and stones. That is a pigment that could very easily and simply be upscaled industrially as it is straightforward to work with. Only needs heat and time and some good fabrics. I use other pigments such as turmeric and avocado stones because I want to offer diversity and to point out how waste can be transformed into such valuable resources. Algae pigment itself is a by-product of the industry. It isn’t the highest-value compound that can be extracted from algae, but it can offer such value for the fashion industry. Your website also mentions cosmetics from algae. How does the fashion project link to the benefit of algae in the health and beauty industries? I mention cosmetics, yes. This is because microalgae are renewable, safe, very beautiful pigments that can be used in industries like cosmetics. There are companies who already use a variety of algae compounds for producing face creams. I will hopefully be able to collaborate and develop a pink algae lipstick or other products in the future, to complete the Nostalgae portfolio of eco-conscious products. If there is anybody who would like to collaborate and has expertise in handcrafted cosmetics, please contact me on nostalgae@outlook.com. If any readers would like to source microalgae, would like any advice at all, or are keen to collaborate, please get in touch.
GET IN TOUCH WITH LUISA Website: www.nostalgae.co.uk IG: @nost.algae
Microalgae dyed top (Chlorella and Spirulina) Detail Bottom image: Silk tops dyed with microalgae Right image: Turmeric dyed bag on a natural linen base
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Sculpting wool Words by Rosa Rossi Photography by Elia Palange
‘Sculpting wool’ (Scolpire la lana) is the title of a piece created by Valeria Belli, a weaver from Abruzzo, Italy, for the 2016 edition of the biennial awards organised by the Ente Mostra dell’Artigianato Artistico Abruzzese di Guardiagrele (Guardiagrele’s exhibition body of artistic craft in Abruzzo). The piece was inspired by the theme of “mercy”, while the theme announced by Pope Francis was “rejoicing”. Valeria Belli first trained as a weaver at her secondary school, which specialised in art. These institutions were successors to the Bauhaus (1919-1933) ‘design culture’ school of thought. The school sparked a great avant-garde adventure, promoting a fusion of art, techniques, research, and experimentation. At Bauhaus, women were only allowed to attend the weaving workshops, which were considered more appropriate to the female gender. Consequently, many of them - also as a result of excellent training by great artists used this technique to express their creativity, designing and creating woven pieces that are still relevant today, “timeless”, and “modern”. At the same time, those living in the Abruzzo countryside, particularly the farming community, still adhered to traditional cultural norms that had been handed down for centuries. A remnant of this material culture was cloth, which was woven into traditional styles using techniques that had remained unchanged and were unchangeable. In her woven work, Valeria, who grew up in the Abruzzo, experiments with textiles by combining betrayal (of tradition) with salvage (of materials and traditional techniques) to produce innovative artistic pieces. “Sculpting wool” is the perfect example of this. The judging panel awarded the prize to Valeria’s piece. The panel said: “The shapes, pure and minimalistic, are united by the alternating voids and filled spaces, which create decorative motifs that really accentuate the quality of the chosen wool. The piece adheres to the prize’s theme, “Mercy”, by using wool to evoke Christ’s Lost Sheep parable, where he guides his flock with love and mercy. In addition, the wool reminds us of the traditions of the Abruzzo, deeply rooted in our tradition of transhumance paths. Thus, the piece’s shape evokes the road, the path, the landscape as we move from hills to plain. The central cross symbolises Christ, but the piece also clearly references Judaism by evoking the Jewish prayer shawl. Finally, the simplicity, drenched in symbolism, is in keeping with the spirit of Pope Francis’s ministry, which the piece will be donated to” (25 July 2016). This is what Valeria told us about her piece: My work was inspired by the parable of the Lost Sheep: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one
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of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?” (Luke 15, 1-7)
panne” (the double cloth) or, in technical weaving language, interchanging double cloth. It was stuffed with wool saved from old mattresses.
This woven decorative wall hanging (45 x 120 cm) not only reflects the designated theme, “rejoicing”, but also the whole of Abruzzo as I see it. It is representative of all of my work as a weaver.
The combination of the weaving technique with the voluminous quilting evoked traditional Maiella stonecutting work gave me the idea for the piece’s title: “Sculpting wool”. Abruzzo’s textile traditions are also referenced through the use of a decorative pattern extracted from typical wall hangings. I based the entire piece on this, making changes and stretching it, bending the technique to meet the demands of my composition. The idea developed firstly in the form of graphs with sketches of variations on the composition and subsequently during the weaving process.
“Sculpting wool” was subsequently given the name Manto della Misericordia (mercy shawl) because of its strong symbolism and similarity to the Jewish prayer shawl. But how was this textile made? Everything began with the chosen gospel, the parable of the lost sheep (or Christ’s “Good Shepherd”). This immediately led me to one of our region’s symbols: pastoral culture and the importance that wool has always represented. Consequently, I had to use sheep’s wool (bought from local breeders). It also needed to be white, a colour that gave it a spiritual quality, linked to the idea of purity. This quality led to my interpretation of the sacred and spiritual, one that is exuded by the Maiella, a massif in central Abruzzo. It is the land of hermits, saints, and monasteries and evokes another era. The white, combined with the piece’s volume, made me think of the stonecutters who polish this mountain’s white stone, a craft that has always defined this area.
To give the work rhythm and joy, I used salvaged black rubber, which I turned into thin strips and then inserted into the piece at regular intervals, alternating them with short fragments sewn in viscose and lurex threads. These threads gave the piece its small, bright flashes, which also make the entire composition vibrate. Finally, the wall hanging pole could not be anything but wrought iron, another of the Maiella’s important traditional crafts. In Guardiagrele, wrought iron was, - and still is - an extremely important symbol, and there are many workshops still producing it. The pole was chiselled by Maestro Filippo Scioli (Guardiagrele, Chieti).
To achieve the volume, I used a special technique. It is rather complicated, but was a widespread method of creating blankets and tablecloths in the Abruzzo: “lu doppie
As per the prize’s regulations, the winner has to weave a copy of the original, with some small variations. This is then gifted 21
ISSUE 17 to the Pope. On 7 February 2018, in the company of a large delegation from Guardiagrele, I had the pleasure of not only attending a papal audience - a true spectacle - but also personally delivering my piece to Pope Francis I. The Pope listened to my description attentively, his curiosity sparked. A 35 x 40 cm piece created using the same technique mounted on a slab of white Maiella stone sculpted by Riccardo Di Ienno (Guardiagrele, Chieti) stands in the weaving room in my summer refuge at Decontra, which faces the Orfento valley. It is a reminder of sorts of the innovative textile challenges that I want to tackle in the future.
GET IN TOUCH WITH VALERIA Email: filiformetessitura@gmail.com FB: @Filiforme-di-Valeria-Belli-laboratoriostudio-di-tessitura-a-mano
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Straw hats and wetland plants Words by Rosa Rossi Photography by Elia Palange
T
he chance to visit a milliner’s workshop is a great opportunity to learn more about the world of hats. And the world of hats really is a melting pot of materials, techniques, and skills. Not only that, it is also an excellent excuse to think about craft production, from cultivating and harvesting primary materials to processing them into threads and textiles. And then there is the crossover between different technical skills, the tension between artisanal and mass production techniques, and changes to the way we dress that - in roughly seventy years - have reduced the hat to a museum piece.
not really hats either. They are, Silvia tells us, berets designed and created by Stefan Lochner (Feine Hüte, Berlin). They are made from recycled sacks originating from different places and the designs make skilful use of the creative and very colourful writing all over them. Indeed, a workshop located in a small town favoured by mostly northern European tourists needs to have a diverse product range. This allows it to attract customers with tasteful, new offerings. Another peculiarity of this place that strikes you immediately is that materials and moulds waiting to be turned into completed hats sit alongside natural materials for stuffing chairs. Because in this workshop, the same skills can be used for very different purposes.
Our visit to Silvia Ronconi’s workshop allowed us to reflect on these questions. We also had the chance to touch the hats, study them from every angle, and - why not? - try them on. Being June, it was also a seasonal visit. The workshop is located in Bolsena, a delicious town on the shore of the lake of the same name, on the border between Lazio and Tuscany. Inevitably, it was the straw hats that drew our attention.
Because of this, our gallery concentrates on a narrow but very wide range of hats which encompasses the assortment of materials and processes this craft uses. When it comes to summer hats, straw is king. We already know that. But did you know that straw is a generic name conventionally used to refer to a huge variety of natural fibres ranging from grasses to leaves (sisal and raffia) and fruit (coconut)? As well as grasses, fibres are also made from wetland plants. These are mostly used for baskets and other
When we arrived at Silvia’s workshop, it was a struggle to not get lost in the incredible variety of hats on show. Many of the huge variety of hats are made from straw. But there are many more made from different materials. Some of them, neatly displayed on a shelf, are not made of straw and are
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functional objects, but can also be used for hats.
into fibre and then thread, washing, dyeing, braiding, or weaving. Each stage requires considerable skill. From the eighteenth century, when fibres from other countries (such as Madagascar, Mexico, the Philippines, and Bolivia) started to be imported and distributed across Europe, specialist areas catering to hat making and millinery sprang up.
Even an expert eye would find it practically impossible to tell the difference between straw made from grass and straw made from another fibre. On the contrary, it is relatively easier to tell straw apart from sisal or raffia. Another thing to bear in mind is that from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, natural fibres were joined by manmade fibres created from natural primary materials (such as wood cellulose) and treated chemically. These also imitate natural fibres. The next advance came in 1939 when nylon was exhibited for the first time at the New York World’s Fair. It was the first of a series of synthetic fibres derived from petroleum.
Perhaps the most famous of these is Florence - home to the braided straw hat. This then arrived in Great Britain, the undisputed capital of millinery and a style of dress that obliged its citizens to wear a hat in public - something that still exists in some situations. The Museo della paglia e dell’intreccio Domenico Michelacci (Domenico Michelacci museum of straw and braiding) in Signa, Florence, documents this wonderfully.
Producing fibres using entirely chemical processes caused a sea-change in our clothing habits. It had a not indifferent role in relegating natural fibre hats to a niche market, and the work of a milliner to the realm of enthusiasts who resist the modern day and mass-production.
Hat museums are wonderful places - a dedicated space where you can observe, learn, and immerse yourself in this very diverse world. Other than the one at Signa, there is one in Montappone, the Marche, Italy. There is one in Manchester, and some in France, around Leon. There is also a very small but interesting one dedicated to braiding at Cadenet in Provence, which displays a rich collection of straw hats. But, of course, Silvia’s goal, just like any other milliner, is to convince everyone who enters her workshop to leave with a hat on their head. To do this, she uses all her ingenuity and skill to turn the textile or hat block into a unique piece. If she begins with a hat block, she can change and adapt it to create what she has in mind, adding other decorative materials and additions such as grosgrain, ribbons, or flowers, either dyed or in a contrasting colour. This is known as ‘blocking’.
However, eighty years on, synthetic fibres have become so rife in processing and mass production, contributing widespread pollution, that it is now a priority to rediscover and use natural materials. The UN acknowledged this in 2009, declaring it the International Year of Natural Fibres. Even more important is looking to the past and our use of these natural fibres, and using this to promote an artisanal activity that produces hats made from breathable, unpolluting fibres, for men, women, and even children in a multitude of fresh, beautiful, sporty, or elegant styles. Remember that using natural materials means using different processes and skills. A specialist workforce is involved in cultivating, harvesting, turning the primary material
If she begins with the textile, she uses sartorial techniques. Natural fibre textiles can be cut, sewn, and decorated. The 26
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Sisal ladies model
Andalusian weaving in marsh grass
Particular weaving
‘Traccina’ of Florence blue band
milliner, uses not only the blocking technique, but also sartorial techniques to create genuine works of art. The hats you can admire in the photos are a selection we photographed during our day with Silvia. We left with an overview of the most important topics in hat making today, realising that to join the discussion you need an almost encyclopaedic knowledge spanning from plants to the specifics of the production process, touching on economic and social themes as you go.
CONTACTS & MORE... Discussing hats, or head coverings in general, means discussing history, society, and globalisation of both plants and fashion!
Red straw hat
IG: @HuauhCreazioniCappelli Fb: @Silvia Ronconi Museo della paglia e dell’intreccio Domenico Michelacci, Signa (the Domenico Michelacci museum of straw and braiding), Florence, Italy. www.museopaglia.it/index.php Ecomuseo delle erbe palustri (Ecomuseum of wetland plants), Villanova di Bagnacavallo, Ravenna, Italy. www.erbepalustri.it Hat Works, Stockport, UK. www.stockport.gov.uk/topic/hat-works La chapellerie. Atelier-Muséè du chapeau (Hat museumworkshop), Chazelles-sur-Lyon, France. www.museeduchapeau.com
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Shoes that Change the World Words by Jacquie Rosenbach Photography by Bula Jean’s Boutique
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ula Jean’s Boutique is a little shop that believes in big things. A brand which ensures that the littlest ones, if nurtured and given just what they need, will grow up with the potential of an acorn. This is a designer who deeply believes in the power of less: less waste, less toxins, less stuff in everything she creates. Based in the United States, this zero-waste business sells shoes, mittens, toys and more for babies and kids. Today, for No Serial Number Magazine, we focus on the Boutique’s star: the Muck shoes.
thrift stores and from generous strangers who leave them on her doorstep. The bike-tire tubes come from bike shops in her area. “Before I started making shoes these bike shops just threw the old tires in the dumpster. They are happy to set them aside for me now”, reflects Andrea, showing the importance of the local community. She even has some volunteers who go around collecting tire tubes for the brand’s humanitarian project, which we will get to shortly.
The Zero-Waste. Craft-o-holic, Scrap-bin-junkie Artisan
“My shoes let little feet grow in the way nature intended – with the thin, flexible soles children can feel the ground beneath them. With the wide toe box, feet can wiggle and spread in all directions unconfined”, says Andrea Boyko, the woman behind the firm, with pride. The cotton duck cloth of these lovely shoes for babies and kids is water resistant yet still breathable, so feet don’t overheat. The cotton liner and boiled-wool sole beds are composed of reclaimed materials. And the grippy rubber soles are made from popped bike-tire inner tubes that were destined for a lifetime in landfill; now they get to run, climb, splash and play before reaching their final resting place.
Andrea has been making shoes since her first baby was about 4 months old. She started crawling and needed her first pair of shoes to protect her little toes, but her feet were so chubby that standard baby shoes did not fit and the popular leather ones were too expensive at the time for her new family’s budget. With a few dollars and a healthy bit of determination, Andrea went to her local thrift store and purchased an old leather coat, with which she made her first pair of shoes for her baby and then for many of her friend’s babies. As her family expanded, Andrea was keen on experimenting she had plenty of little feet to try on new ideas. As her babies grew into toddlers she looked for something that would keep their feet dry in puddles and something easier to clean than leather. After many failed attempts, she was able to sew shoes with repurposed rubber. “If I see an issue come up with one of my kids’ shoes then I am able to tweak the product to make it better. Investing in a sturdy industrial machine was critical to making the shoes”, she explains.
Whenever possible, Bula Jean’s Boutique aims to re-purpose items to create something new, use organic materials, and package and ship using recycled packaging. “The only new materials I purchase for Muck Shoes are thread, duck cloth and elastic, which I can get at my local fabric store”, says Andrea. The lining cotton comes from old t-shirts and bedding which she gets from family and friends and sometimes buys in bulk from thrift stores; the boiled-wool sole liners come from felted wool blankets and jackets, which she also gets from
Andrea describes herself as a craft-o-holic and a scrap-bin junkie. In her shop, for example, a felted wool sweater may 28
NO SERIAL NUMBER first be cut into baby pants, a winter hat and mittens, then the smaller pieces will become wool booties, the even smaller bits will become squares for garlands, and finally the smallest itty bitty pieces go into a basket to be used as stuffing for dolls and balls. Not a speck of fuzz is wasted!
The “Buy One, Give One” Campaign Bula Jean’s Boutique humanitarian project sends a free pair of Muck Shoes to a child in need for every pair that is sold in the shop. In 2016, at the height of the refugee crisis in Syria, Andrea would be working in her shop at night hearing the news of families fleeing in terror, desperately searching for a safe place for their children. As she recalls, “I saw one photo in particular that affected me. It was a toddler standing in front of his family’s tent. He was wearing a sweater and winter cap. I could see that it was cold, but his poor little feet were bare. That photo is what pushed me to give this crazy idea of sending shoes to needy children a try”. Her initial goal was to send 25 pairs to refugee camps in Syria and Turkey, but the word spread, and with so many people joining in to help, she finally shipped 70 pairs in the first month, and the boxes have increased continually since then. The Muck shoes are now being shipped to Bangladesh to some of the millions of Rohingya Muslims living in tent camps. “When we shipped that first box, honestly I did not know if they would really make it. Then one magical day I got a video in my inbox. It showed children lined up in a Syrian orphanage with big smiles on their faces as they received a new pair of shoes – Muck Shoes! We now ask people to host ‘shoe-cutting parties’ where people cut and prepare shoes for me to sew”, she tells us. And her commitment has not stopped. After starting to send shoes to refugee camps, Andrea and her family decided to visit the camps in Lesvos. They were able to hand out shoes and dolls to the children, but most importantly, they bought a sewing machine for the camp so that the refugees could sew their own shoes. Andrea taught them how to make shoes from the mountain of rafts and life vests left over from the millions who passed through Lesvos on their way to Europe. Andrea’s generous creative eye and soul allows her not only to see everything as a resource, but also to see that we all have the ability to make a difference, however small, in the lives of people throughout the world. In her own words: “I have a talent that I am able to put to use and I urge everyone to figure out what their unique talent is and how it could help”.
GET IN TOUCH WITH Andrea Etsy shop: www.bulajeansboutique.etsy.com FB: @BulaJeansBoutique
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The Gallery Wall “A Misremembered Childhood” Words and photography by Barbara Melling Barbara Melling is a textile artist who makes and teaches batik. She works from her studio, a converted blacksmith’s forge, in rural Lincolnshire, UK. Being unwilling to throw anything away, she has collected a small mountain of scraps and offcuts of material. Just over two years ago she decided to create a sculpture using only what she had in her studio. As Barbara put these sculptures together, creatures started to appear with their own short narratives in place. Barbara has one rule: to use only waste fabrics and found objects to create these sculptures, leaving the stitches and patterns from the fabric manipulation to show the process. The haphazard hand-stitching is intentionally on display; she only stitches to hold everything together and ‘sculpt’ the fabric into shape without the use of glues or adhesives. Some of these sculptures have recently been on display at the National Centre for Craft and Design (NCCD). These creatures reflect a confusion often experienced by children between real life, fairytales and nightmares. A mixture of humour, fun and fearfulness. They are Barbara’s misremembered childhood.
The Visitors, by Barbara Melling My first ‘visitor’ was a mouse about 40cm high, standing on his back legs and looking fairly creepy. He materialised from some odd bits of wire which I bent into a vague mouseshape. She stitched some stuffing from an old pillow mixed with some ancient fleece to the wire and covered it in small pieces of cotton sheeting, stitched together and painted with fabric dye (which I have in the studio). He turned out to be a little scary, and Nightmare Mouse arrived.
Nightmare Mouse
“I thought I would make a ‘creature’ that was a mixture of fairy tales and nightmares. I had no idea that this would develop into a large group of textile sculptures, each one different from the rest and each with a story to tell. They became my Visitors.”
Never bothering with children, as he considers them too easily terrified, he only visits adults. He is skilled at not being seen, his victims just catching a glimpse from the corner of their eye. When they turn to look, he vanishes, leaving an unexplained feeling of disquiet and unease. My sister makes costumes for historical re-enactments and gave me a very interesting bag of off-cuts which included some pieces of blue blanket cloth. I had so enjoyed creating my first visitor I thought I would make some more, although perhaps a little smaller this time. With some odd pieces of very thin wire, some of the pillow stuffing and the blue blanket pieces, I made more mice. These were about 5cm high and 10cm long and stood on all fours, far more 'mouselike' than my first one. As more mice arrived a narrative came too: these were the Blanket Mice.
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Blanket Mice These mice live in blankets.If anything or anyone else is sharing the blanket they get nibbled – this could be a reason contributing to the widespread use of duvets. Looking through a bag of bits and pieces of experimental stitching and eco-dyeing I had done over the years on old scraps of fabric, I found some I had practised Dragon Stitch on. I am not sure if it is called this – I saw an article ages ago online about how costumes were made for a production (it may have been Game of Thrones, but as I’ve never seen it I don’t know). It was something about drawing evenly-spaced lines of dots and then stitching the dots together in triangles, creating a regular puckering in the fabric similar to scales. I had tried the stitch fairly successfully on bits of cotton and silk, but a specific piece of the stitched silk, previously dyed with oak leaves, caught my eye and became the feathered breast of Owl. At a later date Kingsley had some too, but his dragon-stitched breast came from an old cotton pillowcase.
Owl She loves adornments and is a receiver of ‘misappropriated’ jewellery, usually from the Magpies. She flies about the country (mainly East Anglia and the Fens due to the flatness of the terrain) hiding hoards of loot before selling it on. She struggles to remember where it is, so carries maps marked with the hiding places. After this more and more creatures appeared. I have no idea initially who will materialise; the inspiration comes from a piece of fabric or a found object. The shape develops into a creature and the narrative arrives about the same time. Kingsley Highness, for example, came from some high-quality tweed fabric offcuts I collected from the bin after attending an upholstery workshop. The fabric told me immediately that this creature would wear a monocle and be very bumptious and officious.
Kingsley Highness Full of his own importance, he makes up numerous rules and travels around ordering everyone to obey them. He acts like this because he believes he is the King - he’s not. (And his real name is Maurice). I have around 30 ‘visitors’ at the time of writing, with more arriving all the time. Word has spread that I work with waste fabrics and found objects, and kind folk often arrive bearing bags of ‘stuff’ and the words ‘can you make use of this, I’m throwing it away?’ I found two tiny bird-skulls in my garden which became drums for The Drum Tick. Two were not enough for this rock musician, who needed a complete set, and as I live in the country I asked people to keep an eye open for more. I was flooded with small creatures that had sadly lost their lives through natural causes. One morning I received a phone message from a neighbour which said ‘’I have hung a bag containing a dead mole on the door to your studio. I thought I should warn you in case you thought it was a hate crime’.’
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Drum Tick He travels around ‘collecting’ old skulls and bones to use as percussion instruments. The spare drum sticks? One of his neighbours complained about the noise. On the subject of bones, Storyteller came from a partial sealskull which a friend’s dog found on the beach. It took two weeks soaking in a weak bleach solution to make it pleasant to work with. I initially covered it in velvet (donated scraps), but decided I wanted part of the skull to show through so left the front part uncovered. He is a very clever fellow and his head overflows with knowledge.
Storyteller This flamboyant fellow tours the country listening as people tell him the stories of their lives so far. He copies them down, then writes the endings. Happy, sad, terrifying, funny or mysterious - they always come true. Would you want to read how your story ends? The Worm Charmer came when I was gifted a bag of velvet offcuts and a piece looked very ‘mole-like’ to me. A tiny chipped pot found in the garden and scrubbed up was perfect for his dinner pot and I enjoyed whittling a piece of twig into his flute.
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The Worm Charmer Having whittled a flute from a twig, he charms worms into his pot and then, when hungry, charms them out again. I do not know who will ‘visit’ my studio next. It will depend on what scrap of fabric catches my eye - if I find something interesting or what a kind friend might give me. I keep to my rule of only using materials which would otherwise be thrown away, and although I cannot single-handedly reduce the mountain of waste produced from our throwaway society, I am having fun trying.
GET IN TOUCH WITH BARBARA Website: www.theoldforgeartstudio.co.uk FB: @oldforgeartstudio
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Developing a new collection for Brodick Castle in sketch book 34
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Creative Practice by Chance and Discovery in the Isle of Arran Words by Kate Stuart Photography by Fiona Doubleday
I
have only visited the Isle of Arran once. I was in my midtwenties and took a day trip, sailing out on a Caledonian MacBrayne ferry from Ardrossan across a calm sea and into the harbour at Brodick. I walked over the beach, picking up pebbles and pieces of sea-worn pottery. Ate fish and chips looking out to a gradually greying horizon. Wandered through rhododendrons in bloom at Brodick Castle, in the shadow of Goatfell, as rainclouds rolled in across the sea. I recall feeling a deep sense of connection with the landscape there which felt out of kilter, and which I could not place,
since my ancestors were all from the Highlands and I had never set foot on the island before that day. It was many years later that I discovered a family connection on the Island, and the photographs and stories that told of the times my mother and grandmother had spent there, long before I was even thought of. Fiona Doubleday followed family to Arran too and has been there ever since. Connected to a place that brings inspiration and, often, the actual materials for her work, the natural world
Bowl made from waste silk scraps from Jaipur using free motion embroidery 35
ISSUE 17 that is so prominent in Island life plays a powerful role in her design journeys. Making textile-thread bowls, journals and lampshades from fabric and haberdashery remnants that would be otherwise destined for landfill, Fiona brings the colour and texture from the landscape around her into her work.
The two groups will come together in a joint exhibition at the Barony Centre in West Kilbride in March 2020. There are about 50 people making their postcards each week so it will be a huge body of work. The project has been inspirational and rewarding way beyond its imagined boundaries and I am thrilled to be a part of it”.
“Living on Arran has a huge influence on my work”, Fiona tells me. “You will find me around the island sketching away as I find another corner that is simply stunning. I am proud to be an island artist and I am also proud that little bits of the island are in so many homes in the shape of a bowl, a journal, a lampshade”.
We’re thrilled to have had the chance to chat with Fiona about her creative journey. She has kindly created a tutorial so that you can create your own postcard, using her techniques, and drawing on your connections to a place that holds special memories for you. We hope you will enjoy this project, and we’d love you to share your creations with us on our social media platforms.
Fiona grew up in a small village in Cambridge, far from island life, but where her love of creativity began early. “I was taught to sew by my grandmother on her Singer sewing machine”, Fiona explains. “She had worked in an interiors factory in Glasgow making silk lampshades and soft furnishings for the ‘big houses’ outside the city. She lived through two world wars and knew how to ‘make do and mend’ like the best of them. She passed this down to my mother, who passed it down to me. I have strong memories of sitting on the sofa next to my grandmother doing some hand embroidery”. These family influences were perhaps a driver behind Fiona’s change in career, from a background in dance and performing arts to textiles, and I ask her to tell me about how this move to a very different art form came about. “I took my work with textiles further when I went to night school to train in silk painting and batik”, she tells me. “These were life-changing classes as I quit my job at the University of Winchester, packed up my family and moved to the Isle of Arran. My mother had already moved there some 20 years earlier. From that point onwards I became my own teacher and experimented with lots of techniques. In more recent years I have been greatly influenced by the work of Cas Holmes, Anne Kelly and Clare Wellesley-Smith. I love their approach to textile art, which is slow, mindful and acutely aware of the need to reuse”.
Bowl made from waste threads and blue plastic rope – free motion embroidery
Sustainability has been an integral part of Fiona’s practice since a decision in 2016 to use predominantly textile-industry waste as her main source of material. “I was mindful of the heavy burden the textile industry places on the planet”, she explains, “and I wanted to develop a studio practice that challenged that in some way. I seek waste from all sorts of places and it often just arrives through the post with a wee note asking me to do something productive with the scraps or fibres in the enclosed bag. I have noticed how much more aware textile artists are becoming of their own waste. I have now shifted my practice to remove any real choice in what waste I use to prevent me hoarding it. Whatever comes into the studio is the waste that gets used for the next project. My work is defined by that sense of chance and discovery”. The connections between other textile creatives and Fiona meet within the bowls and journals that she makes from the fibres and fabrics they no longer need, and perhaps there is a reflection here of the sense of island community that can bind lives together – supporting one another in varying aspects of life through creativity. “Living on an island connects you with community and people in a unique way”, Fiona tells me, going on to say “I am passionate about community arts and am currently leading a project called 52 Stitched Stories. The project was inspired by the Tea Floral tales project that Cas Holmes completed recently. In 52 Stitched Stories we have people on the island and a sister group in West Kilbride creating a postcard piece of work once a week for a year.
Bowl made from waste silk scraps from Jaipur using free motion embroidery Right image: Exhibition photo from The Barony centre, West Kilbride 36
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Top image: Recently sold textile art wall art – Arran from West Kilbride. Made from waste fibres and fabric scraps using free motion embroidery Left image: Brand new ‘Feather Star’ collection created for the island charity C.O.A.S.T – protecting our seabeds off Arran
FIONA’S EVENTs
Ongoing West Kilbride The Barony Centre www.crafttownscotland.org/bwg_gallery/the-barony-centre
GET IN TOUCH WITH FIONA Website: www.earththreads.co.uk FB: @earththreadsarran IG: @earththreadsuk Bowl made from blue plastic rope retrieved from the beach – free motion embroidery 39
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Place & space textile postcard Step 2 Lay all your scraps of fabric and threads in front of you and select the colours that you identify with a place that is special to you.
Learn how to capture your sense of place and space onto a postcard piece of art.
What you need
Scraps of fabrics and fibres Two pieces of calico (mid to heavy weight) cut to postcard size (approximately 13.5cm x 10cm). Textile paints or acrylic paints Paint brush Jam jar of water Embroidery threads -two strands will per perfect Embroidery needle Embroidery scissors
Step 1 Paint one piece of the calico pieces in a colour relevant to your favourite place. Set aside to dry.
Step 3 When your background fabric is dry sketch a simple design onto it using a disappearing pen. 40
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Step 4 Start filling the design with different colour threads and fabrics stitching them down with a simple running stitch. Keep the stitches quite small.
Step 6 When you feel your piece is finished stitch the second plain piece of fabric onto the back to hide most of your workings.
Step 5 Keep adding in more and more colours that you associate with your special place allowing a sense of space and identity to emerge. Try not to over think this stage. Work with your creative intuition. This is your interpretation of your special place. 41
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‘Regeneration after Rain’ 2017. Ink, rain and plantdyed thread stitched to paper. 76 x 56 cm each. Photography by by Sally Blake 42
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Using Potential Space to Explore the Human/Nature Relationship Words by Michelle Challice
S
ally Blake is an Australian visual artist who uses the language of textiles to comment on our somewhat precarious relationship with nature. Human-caused ecological degradation is affecting Australia just as much as the rest of the world. Parts of the continent are experiencing sustained drought, record high temperatures were reported this summer, Tasmania suffered prolonged forest fires and there was uncharacteristic flooding in Queensland. Blake highlights these issues “by focusing on the cyclic patterns of nature and the possibility of regeneration as well as the consequences of these patterns being threatened”.
“Nursing and midwifery are applied sciences and the links between art and science are important in my practice. I also continue to be fascinated about people, their motivations and ways of understanding the world.” There is a global resurgence in fine craft focusing on the process of making. It could be argued that the consistent application of a central methodology such as Blake’s overshadows the making process in her art. Far from it: in fact, repetitive making practices such as basketry, weaving, crocheting, stitching and piecing, help to induce a state of potential space. “Repetitive textile practices and the achievement of a mind state where thoughts can roam freely create a space where the boundaries between inner
This dialogue is underpinned by a methodology that uses the concepts of “potential space” and “containment” to frame her research and resulting works of art. The idea of potential space as “an intermediate area of experiencing, to which inner and external life both contribute”1 was first proposed by paediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald W. Winnicott. Based on his observations of thousands of babies and their caregivers, he identified this “third part of human life” where the child is beginning to develop a separate sense of self from the caregiver using objects, toys and play. Instead of mother and child, Blake has developed and reconfigured Winnicott’s conceptualisations of potential space and intermediate areas for her artistic practice. Recognising it as “a state of mind that allows for imagination and creative ways of understanding the connections between inner and outer worlds”, she uses it to more deeply examine the relationship between self and nature. Containment forms a part of potential space and provides a safe and structured place within which to play. Through play, the infant explores and develops. For Blake, ‘play’ has meant taking an exploratory approach to her material investigations and allows for time to experiment. “I set up frameworks in my practice that establish the conditions for both playful explorations and rigorous investigations to be undertaken in my visual research. An example is my collaborative works made with rain - Rain Drawings. A framework relating to materials and the scale of the works allowed for the tensions between artistic control and lack of control, and the effects of nature’s and the artist’s agency, to be explored”. In Dye Diary, by following an established set of rules, the plant materials, fabrics, threads and Blake’s observations are brought together to produce an incredibly poetic expression of place. Perhaps it is no surprise that Blake has chosen a methodology which has its roots in child development and psychology. Before returning to university to undertake her art degree and PhD, Blake was a qualified paediatric nurse and midwife. This previous experience brings an additional layer to her work.
‘Holding Hope’, 2017. Burns, pinpricks and eucalyptus-dyed wool stitched to paper. 76 x 56 cm. Photography by Sally Blake 43
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‘Interconnectedness’ , 2014. Silver wire and plant-dyed wool, silk and hemp. 200 x 150 cm. Photography by Brenton McGeachie 44
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ISSUE 17 and outer, self and nature become more porous and the differences between them less sure. I understand this state of mind to be potential space, a space where thoughts and feelings move spontaneously and are not impeded by regular, everyday concerns”. The purpose then of textile techniques in Blake’s process is twofold: to both induce the mind state of potential space and to bring about its visualisation. “For example, dye colours from plants are only produced inbetween the plant materials and human intervention, making it an ideal way to explore the space in-between. Producing plant dyes is a way of unlocking and discovering the otherwise unseen colours that plants produce. My research into the visualisation and patterning of the interrelations between humans and nature led me to investigate the interconnected nature of this relationship. Therefore using woven and intermeshed textile techniques to express these ideas were ideal for these explorations”. Blake employs many techniques in her work, and material versatility is critical to her practice. “I work with a wide range of materials as each allows me to create something different and provides lots of opportunities to express my ideas in many different ways”. Copper wire is used to make baskets and three-dimensional forms, as it holds the structure well. Additionally, the surface can be patinated to create a range of colours. Different fabrics take up dyes in unique ways. Blake uses a range of natural fabrics and fibres in her dye-pots to extend the information and colours she can collect from each dye. As an example, each small sampler in the Dye Diaries is made up of seven different fabrics. “I work with a wide range of paper. I like its versatility, and the beauty and tactility of handmade papers. One of the main things I do with paper is stitch it. Often I find paper preferable to fabric, as it will hold the pin-pricked and stitched networks I create. Some papers also take plant dyes exceptionally well”. Blake has completed a series of elemental Fire Drawings using fire and water on paper, and created a series of Rain Drawings using ink and rain on paper. The intricate patterns achieved on paper would simply not be possible with fabrics. As an independent artist, Blake relies on grants to fund her work. She’s currently undertaking research into the eucalyptus species that occur naturally where she lives in the Australian Capital Territory. By collecting stories from local Canberrans about the eucalypts alongside the dye materials, she will develop a multi-layered body of work exploring the physiological and emotional aspects of place. She is also working on a life-size drawing of the Venus of Dolni Vestonice, a 30,000-year-old Venus figurine that represents the Mother Goddess. “The generative bodies of these figurines hold within them cycles of death and renewal in nature and in humans, cycles that have been maintained from their time to ours. I have chosen to draw her at human scale so she may meet the eye of the viewer, and they, her gaze. Tears stream from her eyes, perhaps a divine source of water or perhaps a lament for what she sees. It is this idea, of the Venus looking up and into the world of today, that has inspired me to draw her. I have often wondered and agonised over what she would think of human-induced climate change that threatens the cyclic patterns she embodies”.
GET IN TOUCH WITH SALLY
Ever-busy and in demand, Blake will then start working on large-scale copper wire works for an exhibition in Sydney later this year, as well as submit one of her stitched Network drawings to the Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award.
Website: www.sallyblake.com FB: ‘In In@eucalyptusdyes Memory’, Memory, 2017. Copper wire and eucalyptus-dyed wool, IG:silk @sallyblakeartist silk and andhemp. hempPhotography by Sally Blake 46
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Fire Drawing series, 2017. Ash and burns on paper. 42 x 30 cm each. Photography by Sally Blake 48
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How sustainable are biomaterials? Words by Paige Perillat-Piratoine Photography by Pond
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owadays, bioplastics benefit from an increasing amount of research, and from this research stems improved technology. The materials now have an application potential that almost equals traditional plastics. As such, bioplastics have become the primary alternative to fossil-based products and the resulting resin can be used in many industries, such as transport, wind power, textile, construction, and packaging. The market is split into biodegradable and non-biodegradable materials, with the biodegradable bioplastics usually composed of starch, cellulose and biopolymers among other components — they can break down in either aerobic or anaerobic environments.
bio-granulate. Each product has its own characteristics and advantages. The original bio-resin can be used as a replacement for polyester and epoxy resins. It can be delivered as a two-component liquid resin like conventional resins, but it can also be polymerised. This means that it produces a solid material which can be used to make composite materials by heating it up and which acts as a matrix material around natural fibres. The other two products are variations of the bio-resin. The pond bio-fibres are also in a polymerised state. Because of their small size, the fibres can easily be mixed together with other natural fibres and create strong biocomposites. The granulate is already mixed with a natural fibre, and can then be used just like conventional thermo plastics in injection moulding. Pond’s product is strong, meaning that it can be used in products that have high requirements. Right now the team are working on making the product more flexible and having a higher tensile strength. To this end they are collaborating with a bigger Danish clothing brand.
Mechanical engineer Thomas Brorsen Pedersen and chemist Martin Jensen founded pond in 2015. The enterprise was born from an interest in bioplastics, which began with their desire to create surfboards. Back then, surfboards were almost entirely made of oil-based epoxy and artificial fibres like carbon, glass and kevlar. Pond produces fully degradable resins which can be used to bind all sorts of natural fibres such as flax, hemp, pineapple, palm leaves, cotton, banana and jute. Pond bio-resin is mainly made of plant-derived starch, but they keep the remaining ingredients secret, though they are also 100% bio-based. Combining the pond bio-resins with natural fibres means the final product is 100% biodegradable when exposed to certain bacteria strains found in nature. As such, the biodegradability of the product depends on what it is mixed with. It is possible to tailor the degradation rate to fit the product lifespan, making the product stable under indoor and outdoor conditions.
When asked about their sustainability policies, Pond responded that they try to ensure their resin is made in the most responsible way. Their production plant in Denmark is running on electricity where it is possible to buy exclusively from sustainable sources. Pond was created at a time where growing environmental concerns joined increasing awareness of the economic and ecological viability of bioplastics. The enterprise hit the market precisely at a time of growth. Active environmental movements in Europe, Japan, and the US, as well as growing concern around climate change, are boosting opportunities in the bioplastic market. In fact, our time is characterised by an increasing number of bans on traditional plastics and increasingly favorable policies
The resin is produced in a heated process and has comparable performance and processing conditions to epoxy resin. It has been developed into three different resin products: pond bio-resin, pond bio-fibres and pond
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CONTACTS Website: www.pond.global Email: hello@pond.global FB: @pondbiomaterials
for bioplastics manufacturers. European countries such as Germany, Italy, and the UK have been seeing a steady adoption of bioplastics, but it is in Asia-Pacific that growth is projected to rocket, especially owing to the high availability of renewable feedstocks in the region. On top of this, the fluctuations in oil prices have helped to catalyse the market, increasing viability over traditional plastics. In 2017, non-biodegradable bioplastics accounted for the highest market share. But while these materials may solve the problem of fossil resource use, they only add to the mounting plastic problem. Even so, in either case, environmentalists argue that the manufacture of bioplastics has led to unsustainable deforestation, energy use, and water consumption, so that the tradeoff between the biodegradable qualities of the materials against other environmental metrics is often controversial.
All Resins Mirror
The fact is that the market is growing at a fast rate, and only a handful of manufacturers have truly sustainable ethics. We need to work hard for those to win the upper hand and force the others to adopt better practices. It does not suffice to replace fossil-based plastics - appropriate degradability and sustainable resource use have to be built in to the manufacturing process as well. And on top of this, perhaps, let’s consume less. Pond Fibres
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Designing sustainable communities with open source citizen-led architecture Words by Paige Perillat-Piratoine Photography by Wikihouse
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ccording to the minds behind Wikihouse, the housing development model in the UK is obsolete. By this, they mean that houses are built according to a topdown model where “housing is done to people rather than by people”. This, along with rising land and property prices, implies that housing customers are being cornered into choices that do not guarantee comfort or quality. In fact, in the UK, half of the homes built are erected by the top 20 companies. This results in a very centralised company monopoly which means there is no incentive to build betterquality homes. The motivation instead is to build quickly and cheaply, specifically for profit. As a response there has been a rising demand from customers for houses that can be self-built, a demand that echoes the desire to reclaim the places in which we live, and make them better for longer. Wikihouse feels that therein lies a huge opportunity to build for communities, and develop technology that works for people and community rather than bowing to top-down requirements.
easily draft a structure with the dimensions and shape of their choice. The platform (using a digital structural system called WREN) responds to this information input by dispensing structural plans for this building design which the customer can take to a CNC router - a computer control drill bit that goes around the chosen material, plywood for example, and cuts pieces to a precise level. The CNC router makes the cuts, which results in shaped pieces of plywood which one can assemble into the house they’ve drafted. This can be done alone or with the help of professionals. At the moment Wikihouse have mostly been experimenting with building these homes out of plywood (sourcing timber from Finland and Northern Europe for now), but they are constantly researching other materials that will further their sustainability goals. All the other materials and components that make a house are down to individual preferences. So Wikihouse is just the structural design of a building, which means customers still have to lay foundations, connect to electrical and water systems, choose cladding and interior design (and make sure all this conforms to local planning regulations).
Wikihouse is just one project of a larger company called Open Systems Lab, whose ambition is multifold. They offer a range of complementary systems which aim to change the landscape of architecture and urban design towards digital and decentralised models accessible to all through opensource technologies.
This is where BuildX comes in, another project by Open Systems Designs. This project comes in direct support to Wikihouse (though it can be used for any project), as it is a database for the supply chain and design tools needed to complete a building -in other words, a customisation tool. It gathers a network of experts and companies, ranging from electricians to interior designers, who provide the intermediate and finishing touches to the structure of a building. It is also the marketplace for different materials one can use. The intention of this project is to streamline the process of designing a house, making the process much more accessible and less daunting, as opposed to opaque and expensive.
Wikihouse, then, is essentially open-source architecture — it opens the door to high-quality design which hasn’t readily been available up to now. Customers can use this platform to
Another of their projects is a platform called Plan X, which has been trialled with a few councils around the UK. It allows city councils to write planning rules in digital format. The digitization of planning regulations in a user-friendly capacity means customers will be able to tell straightaway if proposed building plans fit within the planning parameters of their area, which has historically been a distressing process. Again, Open Systems Lab offers a solution to the complexities and opacity of the housing economy. These enterprises, then, are not about reinventing the wheel: “We know the technology is there already, it’s about trying to distribute it” says Clayton Prest, research and development lead. “It’s all been possible for a while”, though not scalable. Now, however, CNC routers are available almost anywhere, which allows Wikihouse to work on the lowest-denominator technology, granting everyone the possibility of creating their own space affordably through their open-source policy. 54
NO SERIAL NUMBER “By opening up we really benefit from global designers contributing ideas and expanding the concept”. For Wikihouse, this is what citizen-led housing looks like — the focus is on allowing people to do more for themselves. Their hope is that doing this will alter the current housing landscape by making it more resilient and less corrupt, less top-down and more collaborative. Indeed, by flipping the balance of power in the housing landscape, Wikihouse hopes to see housing shift towards more durable, humancentered concepts. For them, the only way to really provide housing around the world is to enable people to self-build (which councils seldom do). Such open concepts can foster the creation of more open spaces, community spaces, and shared resources. Indeed, with their technology, community energy can truly have a platform for transforming landscapes. Responsively, Wikihouse is also about straying from traditional supply chains and moving towards circular, sharedownership models - in other words, towards designs people actually want, like houses that produce lower energy bills and renewable supply. Wikihouse are part of the Ellen Macarthur Foundation and are looking into design for disassembly whereby maintaining or replacing pieces is built into the design of a building. The modular design of Wikihouse allows the builds to be moved to other locations a number of times, and the hope is that the materials used would be of sufficient quality to be sold or reused in other ways at the end of the building’s life. Otherwise aged plywood can be used as a fuel replacement, or even garden bark.
include a completed rural farmhouse a few years ago, and a converted barn using Wikihouse methodology. Other demonstrations have been initiated by private clients who appreciate the technology. Their biggest trial yet is the Gantry, on the site of the former Olympic Broadcast Centre in East London. It is made of 21 artist’s studios, each with different claddings, creating a surprising exterior to what was before a bland façade. Wikihouse have also been working on social housing: Sheffield Council has commissioned two homes to begin with as part of a larger scheme for betterquality homes that can be built at scale quickly and affordably.
A few pilot programs are running at the moment, and Wikihouse are looking for customers interested in innovation who are trying to do something new. Some older projects
CONTACTS Website: www.wikihouse.cc FB: @WikiHouse Twitter: @WikiHouse IG: @wikihouseproject
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Some Thoughts About Recycling Textiles Words by Holly Foat Photography by Worn Again What happens to your clothes when you no longer want them? Some people bin them, meaning the textiles go to landfill or incineration, whilst many of us feel we are doing the right thing by offloading our unwanted apparel to charity shops. But is there a better way?
The problem
science-based approach to the problem of textile waste. After years of lab research, their process can take waste clothing and other cotton and polycotton textiles, and deconstruct it to its basic raw materials so it can then be spun into other fabrics to be used again. The science behind it is complicated but it means that the polyester and cellulose (from the cotton) is separated out, cleaned up and extracted. The process can also extract polyester from waste plastics such as bottles and packaging material.
Not so long ago, when clothes were more expensive to buy than they are now, clothes were treasured for years to make sure you got your money’s worth. A jumper would be darned if it was damaged, you’d ask a cobbler to repair your shoes, and you’d only wash your clothes when they were dirty. Now, with fast fashion, Instagram outfits only being worn once and the demise of the make-do-and-mend attitude to clothes, there has been a huge increase in textile waste. Clothes that are stained, bobbly or just too old are often not sold in charity shops: shockingly, approximately 80% of donations to charity shops are not sold. What happens to all this waste fabric? In October 2018, The Bureau of International Recycling World Recycling Convention discussed the need for ‘a circular approach to diverting clothing waste from landfill and incineration’. According to the Textile Recycling Association, 95% of textiles can be recycled (60% of clothes can be reused and 35% can be repurposed into wiping rags or made into new products). As the production of new textiles is one of the most polluting industries, as well as being inherently tied to other incredibly damaging industries (such as growing and fertilising cotton, cheap labour, transportation, not to mention the energy required), there must be a better way to fuel the need for new clothes without creating so much waste.
CEO Cyndi Rhoades says: “There are enough textiles and plastic bottles ‘above ground’ and in circulation today to meet our annual demand for raw materials to make new clothing and textiles. With our dual polymer recycling technology, there will be no need to use virgin oil by-products to make new polyester and the industry will be able to radically decrease the amount of virgin cotton going into clothing by displacing it with new cellulose fibres recaptured from existing clothing”. The process can deal with dyes and contaminants too – these are separated out whilst the polyester or cotton is dissolved and raw material is produced. The process creates pure pellets of PET in the case of polyester or cellulose (similar to wood pulp), which can then be used to create textiles in the same way as traditionally-sourced materials would be. Traditional methods of producing polyester involve using oil (plastic) and huge amounts of energy. Fibre recycling of
A solution Started in London in 2005, Worn Again Technologies is a
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NO SERIAL NUMBER plastics, where plastic bottles are shredded into fibres and spun into new fabrics (usually fleece), has been around for a long time, but this process cannot be repeated as recycling usually downgrades products. Polymer recycling, where plastics are melted down into pellets to be made into other products, is also fairly common. This process is considered to be more environmentally friendly than other recycling methods, as the materials aren’t broken down as much and therefore there is less energy used. The materials produced from this method are comparable to virgin resources, can be repeatedly recycled in this way, and should be cheaper too. This means that this process could lead to a more circular approach to textiles. Limitations The process described is new and has taken years of labbased research and development to get to this stage. Unfortunately, making a significant change in the fast fashion industry is going to take time. Worn Again Technologies are planning to launch their first industrial demonstration plant, but this won’t be until 2021. As with most things, it also takes money, so they are looking to recruit investors and strategic partners. It is happening, though: they’ve already signed up fashion retailer H&M, who have committed to becoming 100% circular by 2030. Other investors include a chemical engineering company, a textiles producer and a garment manufacturer. Thoughts With the fast fashion industry getting a lot of bad press recently, and the Stacy Dooley documentary ‘Fashion’s Dirty Secrets’ which shocked people into rethinking what they buy, it’s clear why fashion retailers will want to be on board with this. Ideas on circular economies are also gaining momentum, with organisations such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation raising more awareness of the issues and potential of circular systems. (Worn Again Technologies is also a member of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Circular Economy 100, and a project partner for Circle Economy’s Fibersort project, which is a technology used to automatically sort large volumes of textiles by fibre type.) The potential use of the process is huge and could revolutionise not just the fashion industry but recycling too. Most recycling processes cannot deal with mixed materials such as polycotton; this means that polyester, cotton and polycotton can be processed together rather than spending time sorting the materials further. The high-quality product is equal to virgin materials, meaning that designers and retailers will prefer the recycled materials because they’re cost-effective as well as more environmentally responsible. It’s also repeatable, so textiles can be recycled over and over again without any downgrading. Usually recycled materials cannot be recycled again, so they are shredded and turned into a flock, which is sold on to manufacturers for use in furniture lining, cushions, car interiors and car seats. I, for one, will definitely be keeping an eye out for new recycled clothes on the high street (H&M already offer some in their conscious range). Further reading Worn Again Technologies www.wornagain.co.uk The Bureau of International Recycling www.bir.org Textile Recycling Association www.textile-recycling.org.uk Recycle Now www.recyclenow.com
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Ecological Solutions Inspired by Tradition: The Return of the Soap Words by Kate Stuart Photography by Funky Soap
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cross our polluted planet, in cities and towns from Birkenhead to Brighton, the call for less plastic, less packaging, less artificial household products, is being heard and answered by small businesses recognising the urgency required to turn the tide on climate catastrophe. It is interesting to note how many of these small businesses, run with the protection of the earth at the core of their practice, are owned and operated by women.
“I think many women are getting more encouraged to take part in business”, she tells me, “and not necessarily just eco/sustainable/earth protecting, due to the help of online businesses and being able to arrange it to their schedule. But overall, I believe more businesses are taking sustainability and protecting the earth into consideration, as it’s been drawing more public attention than ever”. Women supporting other women in the workplace is inspiring to see, though in real terms, it seems to be a trend that many (women) would say has not yet gained apace. At Funky Soap, it’s part of their story. “Funky soap employs other women – we have eleven employees in total”, Anni explains. “I started as a mum of three wondering how to fit my work around childcare and school holidays and I firmly believe that there are too many women with great skills who are stuck at home, unable to find employment that fits in around their family life. All of our employees are local mums from diverse backgrounds and cultures. Some have primary-school children, others older children. We are flexible and can accommodate last minute emergencies at home; school holidays etc. Some older children come and help out in the holidays - packing, bottling - whatever they are able to do. I’d like to think Funky Soap is a company unlike most others - we are almost like a family. We care about our products, our working conditions, our team of workers, the wider environment. We hope some of that care and attention is reflected in our products”.
Anni Kriesche is a woman who owns one such business, crafting cruelty-free, sustainable soaps, shampoos and other cosmetic and household products. Inspired by the homemade beauty products concocted in the kitchens of past generations, when women used what they had to make lotions, potions and balms, Anni has turned an exploration into soap-making into a business that supports other women and their families, whilst encouraging people the world over to ditch plastic at home. “Funky Soap began life in 2013 in the kitchen of my home in Hackney”, Anni tells me. “At that time, I was experimenting with soap; making and giving bars to family and friends. As with any creative endeavour, there were tears – an exploding metal saucepan - and triumphs – my friends loved what I was making and demanded more! I increased the number of products and soon had to employ my first worker; then my second; then my third. At the point where my family were falling over a mountain of stock in the lounge, I decided it was time to move into proper premises”.
The wider environment is another strong pull in Anni’s core business principles. With more people than ever now switching to solid shampoo bars, conditioners and soaps, it’s having a positive effect on her business. Anni tells me that many people are choosing to buy from her as much because her products do not require plastic packaging in the form of bottles or jars, as because of the methods and ingredients she uses. “Our products are made using pure oils, butters and essential oils with the cold or hot process method, just as our grandmothers used to make beauty recipes with natural and healthy ingredients containing no sulphates, parabens or harmful preservatives”. Anni explains. “But plastic pollution is a major global phenomenon that has crept up on us over decades, and now people are more aware than ever, and there are many organizations all over the world trying to come together and take a step. The first thing people consider is their own plastic waste within the household and beauty care. So, people set out to change their habits to help the environment by reducing plastic waste. This of course has been positive for my business personally as customers are requesting more biodegradable packaging”.
With the support of her family, and a commitment to making soaps and skincare products from completely natural ingredients, Anni created a range of products that are now helping people all over the world reduce their plastic. The notion that soap, shampoo or conditioner needs to come in a (plastic) bottle is slowly becoming a thing of the past. To those in the know, solid shampoo bars are the future. From three separate premises in East London, Anni and her team work together with a simple mission at the heart of what they do – to use the power of nature to cleanse, soothe, heal and protect the skin of her customers. Across social media and in local forums, women are rising to spearhead changes in the fight against plastic pollution, waste, packaging, and all the myriad issues that are contributing to the climate crisis. I asked Anni to tell me about the role women play in her business, and why supporting other women is so important to her. 58
Listening to her customers, Anni has been able to make changes to packaging to ensure it’s biodegradable and plastic-free, and has been gradually making more changes that include aluminium bottles, glass containers and Kraft tubs. Along with the reduction of waste, both at a commercial and consumer level, the other huge issue with all cosmetics and household cleaning products is, of course, palm oil. I asked Anni to explain her ethical business choices in relation to palm oil use in her products. “Palm oil had been in our recipes since the first day”, she tells me. “We buy all of our oils from Avril/ Kerfoot Group, which is a company who addresses the environmental and social challenges linked to the plant raw material, by making sure the palm oil is harvested with zero deforestation. Their policy is to always to obtain their palm oil from suppliers who can prove that its cultivation does not contribute to the destruction of forests and peatlands and respects the rights of workers and local communities. We only work with suppliers which are conforming to these standards”. Anni also has a small range of completely palm oil-free products and hopes to expand this range in time. One such palm oil-free product is her Everfill dishwashing soap – a refill washing-up paste that arrives in a Vegware tub, along with a glass bottle and pump. Designed to be diluted with hot water, then stored in the glass bottle to use when you need to, it’s a brand new way to wash the dishes without plastic, and having tried it out myself (thank you Anni!) I can confirm it’s my new favourite kitchen cleaner. With the weight of environmental collapse bearing down on us, it’s easy to feel like nothing we can do is enough, but knowing that businesses across the world just like Anni’s are calling in the changes, and presenting options that can reduce our waste, helps to bring a little much-needed optimism. When there are lots of us making small changes in our lives, and more every day inspired by our actions, we can have hope that perhaps we will be able to make enough of a difference to slow down the trajectory of our impact on the natural world.
GET IN TOUCH WITH ANNI Website: www.funkysoapshop.com FB: @funkysoapLondon Twitter: @FunkySoap IG: @funkysoap
ISSUE 17
Tips for Sustainable Jewellery-Making and Buying Words by Paige Perillat-Piratoine Photography by Stockholm Rose Designs
Stockholm Rose Designs is a single-woman enterprise. It is operated by Sophie, whose past as a conservationist led her to take a more ethical approach to jewellery-making.
mined using smelting. Smelting is the process of applying heat to an ore in order to extract the metal. Heat and chemicals are used to decompose the ore, leaving behind the silver. Smelting creates of toxic wastewater, and also releases toxic metals, including arsenic and cadmium, into the atmosphere.
Sophie has learned a lot about the gold and silver industry and helped us understand some lesser-known facts about these precious metals. According to researchers, the mining of gold and silver is over 7000 years old. The mining site of Sakdrisi in Georgia is one of the oldest gold mines, and archeologists have dated it at around 4000 BC.
After this watershed of dismal facts, there is better news. Sophie says that the detrimental effects of gold mining have been more or less exposed, which is leading to more hopeful developments in the industry. It is now possible to buy ethical gold and silver, usually as either fairtrade or recycled bullion.
Today, one of the most common ways to mine gold is to crush ore rocks and extract the leftover gold. To obtain this ore, large open-pit mines are dug out, resulting in large holes in the ground. The ore is excavated and ground down into a slurry, after which industry practitioners use cyanide to leach flecks of silver and gold. The result is a grey slurry of toxic waste which is often dumped into bodies of water. And while some companies attempt to limit environmental harm by building dams, seepage still finds its way to the landscape (not to mention the countless spills which cause ecological devastation). The seepage poisons the water supply, kills wildlife and wrecks agricultural land. The effects are longlasting.
Fairtrade gold is gold which has been mined in a fairtradeapproved mine. The miners are paid a fair wage for their hard work, have good working conditions, and do not use mercury to mine the gold. These fairtrade mines have strict requirements on child labour, women’s rights, health and safety, and environmental protection. Another way in which we can source ethical silver and gold is through recycled metals, which are readily available at a lot of bullion sellers. The recycled silver and gold is mostly taken from old or broken jewellery, electrical equipment and medical equipment.
Another way to mine gold is panning, a method of mining gold used by smaller artisan mines today. Large shallow pans are used by workers to pick up sediment and rocks from streams and waterbeds. Since gold is denser than other materials picked up, the gold falls to the bottom of the pan. In some mines, workers are sent down tens of metres of long tunnels built under the water with only a pipe for oxygen. The workers, which sometimes includes children, stay in these small tunnels for hours sifting through the sediment and sending it up the tunnel to be panned by other workers at the top. The gold mined is minute and miners use mercury, a highly toxic substance, to extract the gold and create an amalgam. The amalgam is then heated with a flame to melt the flakes of gold together, while the mercury evaporates (and is inhaled by the workers and the atmosphere). Using mercury in gold mining is banned in many countries; however, since the ban is not often enforced, miners still use mercury to extract gold, and approximately 1000 tons of mercury is released into the environment by small-scale mines every year. Mercury then makes its way into the food chain, especially through fish, which are then eaten by other animals, creating a cascade of health issues in wildlife.
These precious metals are incredible since they can be recycled infinitely without losing their lustre. However, recycled silver and gold are only responsible for approximately 30% of traditional bullion, a farcical percentage when one takes into account the detrimental impact of mining. For Sophie, when attempting to source sustainably, customers should look for jewellery that they will wear time and time again. They should also look for a brand with strong ethical values, and which are transparent in their sourcing of materials. Sophie first learned her skills at the London Jewellery School, which included basic classes in soldering, finishing and polishing. After that, it was books, YouTube, and trial and error. Being mostly self-taught, Sophie found new ways of making jewellery. The first step in designing a piece is sourcing the metal, which Sophie buys in different sizes of wire and sheet. It took Sophie a long time to find the best materials for her work. She now uses Argentium SilverŽ for most of her silver jewelry. This is a newer alloy of silver, using germanium instead of copper and a slightly higher content of silver than traditional sterling. It’s hypoallergenic, apparently wonderful to work with, and, most importantly, 100% recycled. The gold she sources is usually recycled 9ct and 18ct gold. In fact, she has
Silver is much more abundant than gold and is often a byproduct of gold mining or copper mining. Silver is often 60
NO SERIAL NUMBER just been awarded her fairtrade certification, which means she can now use and sell fairtrade gold. Being fully transparent, Sophie admits that not all of her silver and gold is recycled. While she uses recycled wherever possible, some pieces, such as chains, stud earring posts and butterfly backs, are not available in recycles/fairtrade metal. After sourcing, the design journey starts with a piece of paper. Sophie draws inspiration from abstract patterns in nature and traces out the abstract shape. Then she works out how it can be recreated in metal. Often it turns into something very different from the initial inspiration. She then goes straight to the bench to play around with some different ideas until she feels she has got it right. Sophie’s workshop is actually in the living room of her apartment in Sweden, where she has managed to create a lovely space for her workbench, desk and storage area. Her desk lies in front of the window, with a view of the balcony where raspberries and strawberries are growing for the summer. One of her favourite projects is one she’s working on right now. A customer is getting married next year in Switzerland, in the mountains. She wanted the mountain range engraved on her wedding band to have the moment with her forever. This ring is like nothing Sophie has ever made before, and requires combining skills from other projects. So far, they have worked out the design, and how Sophie will make the ring. Next up is making the prototype, which the customer will receive to make sure it fits, is exactly what she wants, and to find out if there are any adjustments needed. When they have everything exactly right, Sophie will make the final ring.
GET IN TOUCH WITH SOPHIE: Website: www.stockholmrosedesigns.com FB: @stockholmrosedesigns IG: @stockholm.rose.designs
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Step by step: Hammered Ear Climbers These ear climbers are one of the first pieces of jewellery I ever designed, made and sold. They have that minimalistic but something special look I’m always striving for in my work. They don’t require too much equipment, and are a great introduction to making your own jewellery. Put a spin on them by using a different hammer for a unique finish!
Step 3: Mark 30mm on the wire with your marker pen.
Tools and equipment: 0.80mm wire (I use recycled Argentium Silver in this tutorial) Marker pen Ruler Flush cutters File for sanding Small ball peen hammer (flat side, round side) Steel hammering block Round nose pliers Polishing Cloth
Step 4: Hammer the wire with the flat end of the hammer from the marker pen line, to one end. The wire should be larger in the middle and taper off.
Step 5: Use the round end of the hammer to create small dents. Try to keep towards the middle of your piece as to not misshapen. Repeat step 4+5 for your second ear climber.
Step 1: Take the 0.80mm wire, and use the marker pen and ruler to measure two pieces of 60mm wire.
Step 6: Use the round end of the hammer to create small dents. Try to keep towards the middle of your piece as to not misshapen. Repeat step 4+5 for your second ear climber.
Step 2: Use your flush cutters to snip off the two pieces. 62
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Step 9: Polish up your earrings. I put these into my polishing tumbler for a few hours, which gives me a professional finish. If you don’t have a polishing tumbler, you can use a polishing cloth to buff up your climbers up to a good shine. Step 7: Use the round nose pliers to flick out the end of the earpiece on the non-hammered side.
Step 10: Now you’ve created you ear climbers it’s time to try them on! Push the flicked up part of the ear climber through your piercing first, and then thread it through, slide the climber up your ear and squeeze in place. If your ear climber is not fitting well, reshape and try again.
Step 8: Shape the earrings with your fingers. They should be curled upwards and slightly inwards to the shape of your ear. Make sure you shape the second earring opposite to the first!
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Breaking silence and isolation one pocket at a time Words by Holly Foat Photography by Paula MacGregor
Inspiration can be hard to find - with so much doom and gloom around politics and the environment, it’s hard to stay positive and motivated. But every now and again, something pops up on social media that feels like a breath of fresh air. This incredible creative upcycling project with a message of quiet activism is one of those gusts of wind, bringing hope and inspiration.
Imagine a case of butterflies lovingly captured, pinned and arranged with notes, but replace the dead insects with rose petals, shells, tiny jam jars and eggs. If you love musty books, untidy charity shops, and the very essence of what makes vintage enticing, then you’ll love this. It’s everything I love about stuff, carefully put together.
Paula MacGregor is a visual artist. Her work, showcased on her website, is out of the ordinary. I have no formal training in art so cannot express her style in the correct words, so bear with me: to me, it’s like ordered chaos. It’s like sneaking into the storage space of a museum after hours, it’s like rummaging through the discarded items after a house clearance, it’s like seeing all the old relics from an elderly relative’s home put into neat boxes and displayed with the love they deserve.
Paula’s current project is ‘Dangerous Pockets’, a community art collaboration project that she’s facilitating inspired by the poem ‘Dangerous Coats’. Paula “read the poem, by Sharon Owens, on the internet, and immediately thought it had great potential for a community art project”. Sharon describes herself as a feminist and writes about activism and rebellion in the poem, specifically the use of pockets to carry the leaflets ‘to spread sedition’. The poem captured the imagination of Paula MacGregor, and the ‘Dangerous Pockets’ project was born.
TAMARA LINN HIATT FOR SOJOURNER
LESLEY WILLIAMS SAVE THE BEES
A poignant message for today
A poignant message for today
Terri Potter Transform An artwork created in response to breast surgery experience. Unwanted bras have been manipulated to reflect the personal emotions and physical change following breast surgery
Dangerous Coats
Paula explained is “an artist and loves to inspire people - I believe in cultivating confidence in the community through creativity”. The project is asking people to send in their own handmade pockets, to be displayed as part of the travelling exhibition. Currently there are over 150 pockets on show, and Paula would love to have a thousand by the end of the year. Paula clarifies that the pockets must be upcycled, made from old clothes or bedding (or a cut-out, embellished pocket from a garment), and they must have either a couple of holes or tags on the back corners so they can be threaded onto red cord to be hung. Paula explains that the red cord is symbolic of joining women together with a common goal. Many of the pockets already on display have a story or message to share. These vary from self-love, mothering, memories of childhood, to activism, rebellion and equality.
Someone clever once said Women were not allowed pockets In case they carried leaflets To spread sedition Which means unrest To you and me A grandiose word For common sense Fairness Kindness Equality So ladies, start sewing Dangerous coats Made of pockets & sedition by Sharon Owens
“The project is bringing together people of all ages and helping to break social isolation, as well as encouraging conversation about matters of health, fairness and general wellbeing. It is being used therapeutically and has a cathartic effect on many, as the letters that often accompany the pockets bear out”, Paula tells me. Paula’s ideas of community creativity are really inspiring. “At the end of the 1990’s I found myself working as the Creative Arts tutor in a women’s prison (High Security and Young Offenders). I learnt many things from that experience, one of which was how openly the women spoke once their hands were busy creating”. That expression of self within creating is what I love most about these pockets. Each pocket is handmade with such care and love, and conveys such a personal message. Many of the pockets are anonymous, so the crafters are able to fully express themselves without worry – like a secret they need to share or a kind of therapy. If you’d like to make a pocket to be included in the travelling exhibition, see Paula’s tutorial and get your pocket to her by December 2019!k
GET IN TOUCH WITH PAULA: Website: www.paulamacgregor.com FB: Dangerous Pockets Project
Sally Cadge Daisy and Jim These delightful characters are Sally’s grandparents
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Maria Newman Mothers Pocket This pocket opens out to reveal three inspirational quotes
Anne Ragan Made in Australia My Pockets by Anne Ragan Anne has a very unusual relationship with her pockets: “I love my pockets and I always begin making my dress with a pocket - it all flows from there. I am so infatuated with pockets that when the garment goes to God (or whoever = usually my Motor Mechanic) - I will cut off the pocket & recycle it onto another garment - consequently some of my dresses have quite a few pockets instead of the conventional 1 or 2. Just a Pocket Predator = Me! I never throw away anything - I always find a home for it with someone who loves it if I can’t use it myself.
Paula MacGregor Cute This reminds me of getting my first sewing machine on my 10th birthday, I made a cute ‘shift dress’ and a little bunny rabbit
Anne is from the Gold Coast in Australia, she inspired the ladies from her sewing group (The Paradise Point Creative Craft Group) to make some pockets, 34 in all. They arrived packed inside a beautiful hand made Dillybag as a gift for Paula. Ann will be one of the hosts for the Dangerous Pockets Project during it’s tour of Australia in 2020.
Jane Grice, Sedition Made from the remnants of a sheet that belonged to a relative who was born in 1905 the year the suffragette movement became militant and the slogan VOTES FOR WOMEN and DEEDS NOT WORDS were born.
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Ellen Rivett Devall Faith Protect These pockets are made from a pair of her nephrostomy bags - covered in antique patchwork and stitched slowly by Ellen
Carol Ashmore Pocket full of dreams This pocket opens out to reveal three inspirational quotes
Lyn Lewis, ‘Womb’ “This is surely woman’s most hidden pocket, her womb. Women throughout history have generally been considered to be frivolous, emotional creatures whose purpose was to adorn a man’s arm, with or without a wedding band. Who were prone to ‘hysteria’ and were strictly limited in what was considered to be their social station in society. They were restricted by cultural and social expectations, by family ties and men’s need to be the controlling factor in his individual and socially male dominated life. In all levels of society women were inferior beings. Women brought up in this manner for generations, passed this repression on to their own daughters, as if they had no prospect of being anything important in their own right and should not aspire to anything more. It was as if they weren’t entitled to anything more and that home making, keeping and mothering were menial tasks anyway. Their life was primarily to minister to man’s sexual whims, run his household and/or provide him with children but thankfully most of us now have the opportunity to select which of those things we want to do. Medicine provided us with a freedom of choice and with means of contraception so we no longer have to rely on men themselves taking the initiative and using a sheath, or the withdrawal method alone. The ‘Keep your hand on your halfpenny’ advice for young women, to avoid their too early deflowering and the social shame of pregnancy, might no longer be so often used in earnest or jest. Mostly we make no secret that we take precautions, so we avoid bringing children into the world for the wrong reasons, yet some may feel unable to admit to using these forms of contraception, so for them, it is a ‘hidden’. Some are unable to use them even if they would want to, think poverty and the need to buy food rather than contraception. Think religious doctrine that prevents its use and the emotional guilt burdened on those who consider or use it. There are ‘hidden pocket’ wombs worldwide that hold untold secrets, some that make hearts ache and whilst others hold or held joyful blessed gifts.” 69
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ETERNITY POCKET TUTORIAL
Step 1:
Step 2:
Step 3:
Cut about 20cm off an old pillow case.
Turn it inside out and sew along both sides, leaving about 3cm gap to turn it the right way round again. Turn it the right way round.
Turn over about 4 cm at the top and iron it, this makes a flap to stitch a word or title onto, and also to thread the finished pocket onto the cord for display.
Step 4:
Step 5:
Step 6:
Fold up the bottom to just cover the edge of the top flap and iron it, this has now become your pocket. Stitch through the first double layer, not through all four.
Carefully space out your word to fill the top flap and embroider it, in this instance I used 3 strands of embroidery thread and back stitch.
Sew along the bottom edge of the top flap to make a casing, remember to leave either end open to hang it with.
Step 7: I decided to embroider the rest of the quote on a separate piece of white fabric and to stitch it on later. I wrote it out first to get the spacing right.
Step 8: I chose two pieces of organza, one to represent the sea and one for the sun.
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Step 9:
Step 10:
Step 11:
Organza has a lovely quality, it you rub it hard between your hands the threads start to separate and gather, perfect to make waves for my sea.
I tacked the sea in place with tiny stitches and also the top part of the orange organza.
Then I manipulated the orange organza by attaching it to the sea with tiny stitches to form a textured surface.
Step 12: I added the rest of the quote using a small white back stitch.
Step 13:
Step 14:
I added the rest of the quote using a small white back stitch.
A final iron to flatten it all out, being careful not to melt the organza! 71
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Cultivating dye... How a passion for vegetable dye grew into the idea for a multi-location dye garden Words by Rosa Rossi Photography by Paola Della Pergola
‘Coltivare il colore’ (cultivating dye) (in other words, cultivating plants for colour baths to dye textiles) is a project launched by Paola della Pergola. It is aimed at those who prefer naturally dyed textiles and threads. It also represents a challenge: making vegetable dye more common means coming up against mass-produced chemical dyes. Even the idea of creating a network of dye gardens where participants can personally produce textiles and threads in their favourite colours using natural materials is a revolutionary idea. It represents a comeback for artisan activity, self-production, and small scale, local production. Paola Della Pergola shared her story with us. It is a story driven by passion and a talent for networking, one that involves the amalgamation of different topics and experiences.
dialect: “Madam, this is a gift for you. My mother used it to make woollen socks. If you don’t use it, you can throw it away.” Looking at the wool, I promptly asked him: “And how did your mother wash the wool?” “She left it on the lawn during the rainy season.” And so, with a lawn and water to hand, I would somehow be able to wash the wool. I left the wool outside in a tub. After a month it started to flower, like a tiny island of mixed seeds. Once washed, it was wonderful and just begged to be dyed. I dyed some of it with pods and obtained excellent results. But, as I often find, it wasn’t enough. I often think of my father in the 60s who, when we were too noisy at the dinner table, would reproach us with two verses from Dante: “Ye were not form’d to live the life of brutes, but virtue to pursue and knowledge high.” (Dante, Divine Comedy, Inferno, XXVI, 118 -120, trans. the Rev. Henry Francis Cary). Even today, studying and learning about new, interesting things is what I love most. And so, I took a course at the Museo dei colori naturali di Lamoli (Museum of natural dyes, Lamoli). The course was about the history and culture of dyes and took place at the Oasi di San Benedetto hotel in Lamoli, in the Marche, Italy, A whole new world opened up to me.
“I have always loved colour. I have done a lot of painting and was a ceramicist by profession for over 20 years. In the 70s and 80s, we dyed everything, using pods (chemical dyes - editor). I was enchanted by the transformation. I knew that natural dyes existed but, because I had no direct experience of them, I thought they belonged to a mysterious world. In actual fact, as a city girl, nature itself was a mysterious world: I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t gather or sow. I wasn’t familiar with it.
I began with threads. I do not have sheep, but I know those who do, including the Raccoglitrici di lane locali (local wool collectors) who salvage wool and rescue it from the hazardous waste bin. I then progressed to cloth and haven’t look back since.
Then I developed a passion for felt making, which I practiced for years. Through time, the colour palette I saw in exhibitions began to disappoint me. The colours were all the same, depressingly similar.
Last year, a publishing house asked me to publish Colori secondo natura. Manuale di tintura naturale (Dyes according to nature. Natural dye manual, Altreconomia, 2018).
Until one day, in the mountains, my neighbour approached me with two bags of wool from his sheep. It had just been shorn and smelled horrendous. He said to me, in our local
Up until now, my story has concentrated on how my passion was sparked. But passion isn’t enough. My passion for 72
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natural dyes led me to reflect on the significance of natural dyeing today, at a time in history when we must consider the environment, pollution, and avoiding wasting natural resources - today, in Italy, wool is considered a hazardous waste. But sheep have to be shorn!
barks. Going against the grain, I hunted for St. John’s Wort and its flowering season. I went down south and discovered unknown dye plants. I am fascinated by old tools and the great spinning and weaving traditions. After taking sewing courses and developing my experience, it was a natural progression to become a clothes designer. Using exclusively threads and textiles that I had dyed, I was inspired by the idea of natural clothing, avoiding trends. I can produce items as long as I want without worrying about
It involved rediscovering simple gestures and familiarising myself with the plants around me: the fig tree, the elder tree, and the pomegranate tree; what their best seasons are; when to harvest them and the richness of my ‘library’ of leaves and
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ISSUE 17 colour charts that come from big fashion capitals. To spread knowledge about natural dyeing, I organised my book launch alongside a catwalk show, during the 2018 edition of BooKCityMilano (bookcitymilano.it ). Following this, on 13 April 2019, I organised a catwalk in collaboration with the fashion department of the W. Kandinsky Professional Institute for Accountants in Milan (www.iskandinsky.edu.it/pvw/ app/MIII0034/pvw_sito.php). This was held in one of Milan Design Week’s iconic locations La fabbrica del vapore (www. facebook.com/FabbricaVapore/), during Fuorisalone (www. fuorisalone.it/2019/en), a series of events organised across Milan for the Milan Furniture Fair (www.salonemilano.it/en/ exhibitions/il-salone-satellite-en).”
the textile is dyed. There are many skills involved. Not everyone necessarily needs to know how to do everything. But we can designate tasks to participants at each stage of the process, from the plants to the finished garment - those with gardens, grow, those who can sew, sew, those who can knit, knit, and so on. The starting point will be a location, which we still need to decide on – we have received many applications and offers! Organisations are joining from all over Italy, from Lombardy to Piedmont, Emilia Romagna to the Abruzzo and Calabria. This is destined to grow. In Milan, the project’s base is the Nuovo Armenia farmstead, which won a Milan council project to set up a local cinema as part of an urban park.
THE MULTI-LOCATION DYE GARDEN
Work has already started at the project’s designated space in collaboration with a class from the local primary school. The schoolchildren planted madder seedlings (cultivated by Giulia Perin in Moncalieri, www.emina.us) and woad seedlings (Isatis Tinctoria) from Navelli (Abruzzo) where No Serial Number Italia is based, as well as calliopsis, marigolds, and others.
These experiences led to the idea of a multi-location dye garden which is taking shape at this very moment. A lot of private organisations, associations, and public companies have shown interest in participating, offering their own spaces - big or small - to grow dye plants. Paola Della Pergola is receiving many applications from across Italy and abroad. This is a tangible sign that people want to join this silent revolution that, with time and through the dedicated work of all involved, could send a strong message to the world of fashion. A message that it is now time to return to the subtle dyes of flowers, leaves, roots, and barks. These dyes only need nature, water for dye baths (which can be used to avoid wastage), enthusiasts to collect, choose, and prepare the textiles, materials, and dye baths, and people who can use the needle, thread, sewing machine, patterns, and so on once
For a dye garden you need: 1. a lot of passion; 2. a patch of land, or simply a few terrace pots; 3. a taste for sowing, cultivating, and harvesting; 4. the desire to create a network of enthusiasts and share experiences and products.
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Circular Systems: The case of Rapanui Words by Holly Foat Photography by Rapanui
R
apanui made waves on social media earlier this summer with the launch of their fully circular t-shirts. Obviously I don’t mean that the actual t-shirts are circle-shaped; rather, the way they are made and recycled is circular. The circular economy model of creating, reusing and upcycling is being championed by the Isle of Wight-based Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Rapanui’s news is ground-breaking for the fashion industry, showing that it’s not only doable, but
profitable. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, less than 1% of fabric used to make clothes is recycled into new clothing, meaning that the equivalent of one truckful of clothes is dumped in landfill every second. Rob & Mart DrakeKnight, two surfing brothers also from the Isle of Wight, wanted to address the issue of waste and launched Rapanui in 2008 from their parents’ shed. Sustainability was key for them from the outset. The cotton for their t-shirts is grown using organic fertilisers (cow dung) and watered using rainwater, which is carefully collected. They use co-planting to prevent insect attack and increase biodiversity. The factories where the clothes are made (India) and printed (UK) are powered by renewable energy and the used water is treated and cleaned so it is drinkable (on their website there is a video of one of the founders drinking the treated water). They have literally thought of everything, the whole way through the supply chain. They have created a system of traceability and transparency so nothing is left to the imagination. They only print the t-shirts once they’ve been ordered to avoid having stock piled up and unsold. For very small orders they use a digital printing system using animal-friendly inks. For larger orders, they use a screen-printing technique with plastisol ink, which can be separated from the wastewater and reused (in contrast, water-based inks are often disposed of in the wastewater). Packaging has been designed to be plastic-free, and the clothes are packed in paper and cardboard. Sometimes there is a trade-off between being good for the environment and benefiting local people. However, this isn’t an issue, as throughout the production process they’ve considered the social impact too. The clothing factory in India has been audited and is apparently “one of the leading socially responsible manufacturers” in the country. Their other factory is on the Isle of Wight, where there are few employment opportunities, especially for younger people. They explain that they “do a lot of stuff for youth unemployment on the Isle of Wight, which as a county has, at the time of writing, one of the highest rates of youth unemployment and the second-lowest GDP per capita for the UK”. Teemill, a spin-off from the original surf-style designs, allows other organisations and companies to sell their own designs whilst using the same tech and sourcing as Rapanui. You’ve probably seen them advertised: Katharine Hamnet, Save the Children, War Child, Man Who Has It All, Attachment Parenting UK all use Teemill to print and ship designs, quite often to raise funds for a charity or cause. I love that, rather than keeping Rapanui’s tech to themselves, launching Teemill makes sustainable sourcing accessible to others in the industry as well as opening up t-shirt design to individuals too. 76
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And it doesn’t end there – bringing the product full-circle, the end of the t-shirts has also been planned. When the clothes come to the end of their lifespan, they can be returned to Rapanui/Teemill to be recycled. As most people know, not all recycling is equal. Often the fibres in recycled cotton become too short to be remade into more textiles, which is why many recycled fabrics are polycottons. Plastic fibres are often added to the short cotton fibres to hold the fabric together, but this then means it’s even harder to recycle further down the line. But as with everything else, the Rapanui guys have carefully considered this and found a solution. Using different machinery - reconfigured knitting machines - the short cotton fibres can be used without a problem. They also mix in some new fibres from the factory waste with the shorter recycled fibres to make the fabric stronger. This results in slightly thicker cotton t-shirts, which they describe as more durable and which should last longer. To make sure that their products are returned when they are no longer wanted, the t-shirts have a QR code printed on their care label. Once scanned, a freepost return label is generated so the clothes can be returned for recycling with minimal effort and no cost to the consumer. The returning and recycling is incentivised by a discount on further purchases.
need them. And everything we make is designed to come back and be remade when it’s worn out. Sharing this work with other brands via the cloud means that everyone can participate and co-create the future of fashion. We are building a circular economy on the cloud, today”. Martin Drake-Knight, Co-Founder.
FIND IT ONLINE: Rapanui: www.rapanuiclothing.com Fb: @Rapanuiclothing Teemill: www.teemill.com Fb: @teemillstore The Ellen MacArthur Foundation: www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org
The wonderful thing about Rapanui is that it’s no longer a niche market. Granted, the surf- style designs and hoodies may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but with 28 thousand likes on Facebook, there is obviously a lot of interest. And it doesn’t stop there. Rapanui have defined themselves as thought leaders in sustainable fashion. They’re keen to develop an eco-labelling system which can be rolled out to make sourcing in the fashion industry more transparent, clearly summarising how a product has been made using various eco criteria. I have to admit that I’ve been aware of Rapanui for years. Having grown up on the Isle of Wight, I’m keen to support and promote any business that can flourish in what can be a hard environment. After researching this article, I have ordered myself two of their t-shirts. Whilst there is obviously still a very long way to go for the fashion industry as a whole, it’s clear that making cotton t-shirts into an almost closed-loop system is achievable and Rapanui should be encouraged and applauded for championing it and doing it so well. I can’t wait to see what else they can come up with! “3 out of every 5 t-shirts that are bought today will end up in the bin within a year. The fashion industry is a system where resources are taken out of the ground, made into products that are then thrown away, and that means a truck-full of clothes are burned or buried in landfill every second. Just slowing down fast fashion won’t fix it. But when we take the waste from the end and use it to make products back at the start, it changes everything. We only make products people actually need, when they 77
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Designing a sensibility for sustainable clothing Words by Katie Jane Hill
M
omentum has been building around the need for changes in how we all engage with fashion as our awareness grows of the many environmental problems associated with clothing – Stacey Dooley Investigates ‘Fashion’s Dirty Secrets’ which aired on the BBC last year really brought home the message that our love of cheap high street clothing is having catastrophic impacts around the world. Also in 2018 the UK Government Environmental Audit Committee ran an inquiry into the sustainability of the fashion industry, coming to the conclusion that government needs to force change through environmental and labour market practices. The government have rejected these recommendations across the board so there is still much work to do to change government policy and the industry, so what can we do as consumers? This is the question that brought together pro-environmental behaviour change researchers with fashion researchers to explore an approach to shifting consumer behaviour.
in facing complex global challenges, design as a practice and an industry needs to change it’s approach and not just keep making more stuff. The potential of creative problem solving processes that design does so well can help to find more sustainable ways to live in the world. Clothing is fraught with environmental and social issues from the growing and processing of raw materials through water pollution caused by the laundry process, to the disposal of increasing amounts of textile waste, every stage of the lifecycle of clothing raises concerns about the detrimental impact on the environment. As consumers how can we navigate these issues to find a sustainable way to live with clothing? S4S was devised by Clare Saunders, a politics researcher at the University of Exeter Environment and Sustainability Institute and Professor of Fashion Textiles Theory at University of Wolverhampton School of Art, Fiona Hackney. This exciting collaboration has produced a truly cross disciplinary project that brings together social science and arts based research methods with an ethos of co-creation. 5 other researchers were involved in the delivery of the project, and a community of partner organisations contributed including Antiform Ltd. sustainable fashion brand from Bristol, and Fashion Revolution.
The S4S Designing a Sensibility for Sustainable Clothing project set out to design a sensibility for sustainable clothing as a way to enable a change in behaviour of consumers of clothing (all of us!) and succeeded in building a community of people who are evangelical about making and re-making clothing as a way to push back against fast fashion. It’s easy to imagine designing clothing, and designing sustainable clothing, but not so easy to imagine designing a sensibility for sustainable clothing. Here we venture into the realms of social design – ‘participatory approaches to researching, generating and realising new ways to make change happen towards collective and social ends’ (Armstrong et al. 2014 p15). Social design is a growing movement within design practice and academia of applying design processes and thinking to complex social and environmental issues, and working with systems and experiences as the objects of design. It is a recognition that
In 2018 over 40 craft workshops were held in arts centres, community halls and university studios in Cornwall and the West Midlands. The two sites were chosen as local to the two university partners and participants were recruited through a network of community partner organisations. At each site participants were invited to take part in around 20 days of workshops to learn craft skills inspired by the lifecycle of clothing. The workshops were facilitated by local artists and arts educators, and supported by research teams from the universities. In Cornwall a core group of 10 women worked 78
NO SERIAL NUMBER through the full set of 20 workshops together. In the West Midlands, around 30 people including both men and women, and several young people came along to the workshops, everyone did at least one set of 5 workshops, and most people did between 10 and 20 workshops. What is a sensibility for sustainable clothing? A sensibility is defined as ‘an understanding of or ability to decide about what is good or valuable, especially in connection with artistic or social activities’ (Cambridge Dictionary) and as the ‘quality of being able to appreciate and respond to complex emotional or aesthetic influences’ (Oxford Dictionary). In relation to sustainable clothing this means developing a set of practices that bring together our inner life – thoughts and feelings about the environment, clothing and identity, with our outer life – how we actually acquire, use and dispose of clothing and how we express our values and identities through clothes. Photo by Nina Constable Media
What methods did we use to develop this sensibility? Social practice theory suggests that in order to change practice there needs to be a combination of multiple factors in place to support change, and similarly social design often draws on a combination of multiple participatory approaches to enable change. Drawing on these approaches the S4S approach used a combination of multiple methods that worked together to support change. These included workshops, themselves a combination of spaces, people, skills, and tools; making of reflective films; wardrobe audits both carried out by researchers and completed independently using an online tool; clothing diaries that also functioned as sketchbooks to record learning from the workshops; and surveys and reflective questionnaires. The research tools were designed to engage people in the process of change as well as to record evidence of how thoughts, feelings and actions were changing throughout the project.
project available on Youtube that give a flavour of what the workshops were like. At the end of the project we produced a set of leaflets about the workshops, and an exhibition that was shown in Wolverhampton and Penryn, Cornwall, and we are hoping to make available to tour.
What happened at the workshops? The themes of the workshops were designed around the lifecycle of clothing, starting with a visit to a farm and mill, and ending on working with waste textiles. The workshops were organised into 8 sets of 5 workshops and these were the workshop titles:
What will happen next? Our research has shown that for the people taking part in the project there has been a significant impact on their own clothing habits, and we are curious to see how this will continue and grow. Through bringing people together to make and mend clothing we have built a community of people committed to making and re-making clothing and thinking more carefully about how they acquire new clothing. Many of these people were attracted to the project in the first place because they already had the seeds of ideas about clothing and sustainability, and have ambitions to set up their own businesses and projects. This project has acted as a catalyst to developing those sustainable project ideas, a kind of sustainable clothing incubator. In both sites we have joined with business support projects to host events to help our participants move forward with these project ideas and are excited to see what the S4S community will do next.
1: Fluff to Fibre 2: (De)Constructive/(Re)Constructive Knitting 3: Towards Zero Waste 4: Vintage Pattern Cutting 5: Make-Do-and-Mend 6: (In)Visible Mending 7: Second-hand and Ethical 8: Re-make, Re-purpose, Upcycle The content of each set of 5 workshops was co-created with the artists and facilitators that were running the workshops, and to some extent the workshop participants themselves. A broad framework emerged of ice-breaker activities to start with followed by skills teaching and then time for people to do their own projects with support. The workshops were happening simultaneously in the two sites, with workshops 1, 3, 5 and 7 happening in Cornwall and the rest in the West Midlands. To create dialogue and connections between the two sites we did some Skype chats between the two groups, and we made items that were sent between the groups to work on collaboratively.
CONTACTS: Katie Jane Hill, Lecturer and Research Assistant University of Wolverhampton, Faculty of Arts Email: k.hill4@wlv.ac.uk Website: www.sites.exeter.ac.uk/s4s Twitter: @S4sSensibility Instagram: @s4s_sensibility Facebook: w@S4sSensibilty Youtube Channel: look for “S4S Project”
Throughout the workshops we worked with film makers Nina Constable and R&A productions, who specialise in making films with craftspeople, and have a set of films about the 79
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Fighting climate change during school exams: the recent rise of youth led activism Words by Holly Foat
Teenagers are often dismissed as being naïve or impulsive. But there is a growing movement of young people who want to be taken seriously, who want to make a difference. Greta Thunberg is a prime example of this youth-led environmental activism. Greta became a climate-change activist almost overnight by refusing to go to school until the Swedish government acknowledged the need for action to stop climate change. She was only 15 at the time. Greta paved the way for the voices of this under-represented group to be heard and to be respected.
Following his success, Oscar wasn’t content to leave it there. He’s now fighting against deforestation. “A few months later I created a petition calling on Tesco to drop palm oil from its products until a fully reliable and large-scale way of certifying sustainable palm oil was available. This is because certification bodies such as the RSPO - which certify palm oil, saying they are produced in a sustainable way with no deforestation involved - have been exposed for corruption and certifying plantations created on rainforest which was cleared for planting. Until there is a better way of ensuring that palm oil is truly sustainable and has zero deforestation involved I believed that Tesco (as one of the UK’s largest supermarkets) should take this bold step to advocate for the creation of a better certifying body. This petition has currently had no response from Tesco and has gained over 150,000 signatures”. You can sign the petition at https://www.change. org/p/tesco-ditch-palm-oil-in-your-own-brand-products.
Oscar Glancy is just sixteen years old. He was 13 when he started his Instagram account ‘Justice4Earth’. I caught up with Oscar and asked him about what inspires him. “I’m a teenager growing up in a world that is fast deteriorating around my eyes, and very little is being done to stop this and ensure I actually have a future. I have been inspired by many people, including the incredible David Attenborough, youth icon Greta Thunberg, and 16-year-old American Jamie Margolin, who founded the climate justice group This Is Zero Hour”.
You cannot fault Oscar’s commitment. Despite being in the middle of his exams, he still has time to chat to me to further his cause. His dedication is admirable but he’s still modest about his achievements. “When I started Justice4Earth on Instagram back in July 2016 there were relatively few environmental awareness accounts, especially ones run by young people. I would account my large following to just being lucky as one of the first youth environmental accounts on the platform and having a couple of viral posts, such as a video which received over 150,000 views! What is great is that now (especially since the start of the youth climate strike movement Fridays For Future) I’ve been seeing a huge number of young people with similar environmental awareness accounts popping up. It’s so motivating, in a time of such uncertainty about whether my generation will actually inherit a liveable planet or not from our world leaders, to know that my generation are stepping up and taking the baton of activism as our parents and the current generation have failed to do”.
He explained to me that he felt “frustrated by the lack of action on issues such as the climate crisis from governments and world leaders. I felt driven to inspire and educate others on environmental issues and get the general public to take their own personal measures to cut down on their environmental footprint”. Oscar has used social media to make a difference. With over 21,000 now following his Instagram account, Oscar knows a thing or two about reaching an audience. “I had seen petitions in the past by groups such as Greenpeace which had had huge success. With this idea I tried to think of a petition idea with a reasonable chance of success, and came up with targeting the hand-out plastic cutlery in Marks and Spencer. Within around two weeks of creating my petition - which was calling on M&S to replace this cutlery with a sustainable alternative - the petition gained around 50,000 signatures and the supermarket replied, saying that they would be replacing their cutlery with sustainable bamboo cutlery in the near future. In a release on their website which discussed a wider view of what they were doing to cut down on their environmental footprint, they mentioned the fact that every year they handed out over a shocking 70 million single-use plastic cutlery items in their supermarkets every year! The fact that my petition would be cutting the flow of this plastic was a huge win for me and has been one of my proudest achievements to date”. You can read about the petition on change.org (www.change.org/p/ steve-rowe-m-s-ditch-plastic-cutlery).
Another young activist worth following is sixteen year old Bella Lack - she’s already an ambassador for the Born Free foundation and the Jane Goodall Foundation. She started a petition through change.org, asking the government to ban the use of wild animals in circuses across the UK. The petition was a success, with the British government recently announcing a bill to make it law. (https://www. change.org/p/ban-the-use-of-wild-animals-in-circuses-acrossthe-uk). Bella also started a petition to UK supermarkets asking them to ban all palm oil from own-brand products. You can sign her petition here www.change.org/p/supermarketsban-all-palm-oil-from-own-brand-products.
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I asked Oscar if he had any advice for young people who would like to make a difference. He said: “Go for it! Do whatever you want to do - if you want to make an environmental social media page then take the plunge and do it! Hard work, time and dedication pay off no matter how hard it may seem at the start. We live in a terrifying but also very exciting time as groups such as Fridays For Future and Extinction Rebellion (XR) have sprung up in response to the climate crisis. The great thing about these movements is that they now exist everywhere and as a young person you will almost certainly have a local Youth Strike group and an XR group as well. This is great as you are able to engage in environmental activism from your own home town or village without having to travel to a big city where environmental demonstrations were usually held before the advent of XR and FFF, which are both now the two fastest-growing and largest environmental movements in history”. So what’s next for Oscar? He explained that “Humanity now stands at a tipping point in our history and the actions we take or fail to take in the next decade or so will decide the future of my generation and the generations that come after me - or if we even have a future at all. We have just 11 years until 2030, which is when we are on track to hit 1.5 degrees C of global warming and begin to trigger feedback loops in our atmosphere and start a series of events which we will be unable to stop. This will lead to the complete collapse of human civilisation within possibly just a few decades, and every day the outlook is looking worse”. Perhaps this is why younger people are taking up the mantle of activism? I’ve not heard this perspective on climate change before – 11 years until everything falls apart is pretty terrifying. Oscar continued, “I am determined to do everything in my power to ensure my generation have a future and a habitable planet, and so over the coming months I hope to become much more involved in environmental activism and direct action with groups like XR, as there is no time to lose. Over the past few months we have seen XR gain huge success through the April Rebellion, and with big plans for a global Rebellion in Autumn I hope to engage in a huge amount of direct action and continue to strike in the FFF movements with millions of other students worldwide”. Oscar has a point. Environmental awareness is far higher than I’ve ever seen it. The powers that be seem to finally be listening, there are documentaries on TV every week about waste, plastic, pollution, fast fashion - it really is now or never!
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Advocating for The Earth The Law According to Polly Higgins Words by Kate Stuart Photography by Sylvain Guenot (www.sylvainguenot.co.uk)
I am sitting at the bottom of my garden while I write these words, with the sun on my face and my bare feet grounding me to earth. The clematis is in full bloom, its pale pink flowers cascading over the back fence, and with the bright colours of calendula, aquilegia and bluebell beneath. The raised bed is full of sage and sapling trees that my children are growing. The sun is dappling through cherry, apple, sycamore and elder, onto a toy-strewn lawn more dandelion and clover than grass. There is a gentle hum from the birdbox in our homegrown hawthorn hedge, where a colony of Tree Bumblebees are living this spring. Starlings are nesting in the eaves of next-door’s roof. This evening, we will watch bats overhead, listen for the sounds of frogs in a nearby pond, and peek through the fence to catch a glimpse of the family of foxes that live under an ancient stone boundary wall. I live in the middle of a city, but surrounded by trees, by all the sounds of nature, and with a view, if I stand on my tiptoes and crane my head a little to one side, of the hills south of the Tyne. It is easy, sitting here amongst all this LIFE, to step out of the knowledge that we are in the middle of a sixth mass extinction. I could let the abundance of nature around me convince me that it isn’t true.
proposal, which you can read about in her book “Eradicating Ecocide: Laws and Governance to Stop the Destruction of the Planet” (2010), brought a fifth international crime to the table, that of any act which destroys or damages the Earth or its inhabitants. Ecocide. “I found myself thinking, the Earth is in need of a good lawyer. It was a thought that didn’t leave me, because the earth and communities right across the world – their voices aren’t being heard. And I was recognising that actually nobody was representing the interests of the Earth, as such, in the courtroom” (2). Polly Higgins Polly’s law for the earth and her lobby to the UN was unsuccessful in 2010, and so she put her energies into a campaign to gather support around the world for it. Her Mission Life Force campaign seeks to bring people together to stand behind the creation of a law that puts the planet and all living beings upon it, first. A pre-emptive “first do no harm” principle is at the core of her law proposal, where those with Superior Responsibility, that is those who are at liberty to make decisions that can impact millions of inhabitants of the Earth, as well as the Earth itself, will have a duty of care enshrined in law to ensure that decision-making comes from a place of protection.
But oh, it is. This time last year, I had never heard of Polly Higgins. Perhaps you haven’t heard of her either. That’s okay. Because I’m going to tell you her story. It’s a story of hope and determination. I feel in my bones that one day her story will connect all the stories of all the women and men who are fighting for the survival of the earth.
“Can you imagine what this would look like if it had already been put in place? How that would have fundamentally shifted how we operate politically, how we operate economically, within business – to operate from a ‘first do no harm’ principle to the Earth? Could you imagine what this world would look like? How we would be operating from a system of deep care on every decision-making process? It would be really quite remarkable” (3). Polly Higgins
I first became aware of Polly via the miracle of YouTube. Last autumn, as Extinction Rebellion were warming up for mass civil disobedience, I watched a TEDx Talk from 13th February 2013 (1), where Polly challenged the audience to consider these questions – how to create a world of peace, and how to dare to be great. Barefoot on the stage, standing on a carpet of moss and surrounded by potted fir trees, she talked about her connection with the earth and her journey to protect it. She was every bit the eco goddess, and she immediately had my attention.
Polly Higgins died on April 21st this year. She was 50. Her legacy will be the belief that the Earth deserves to be protected in International Law. With all my heart and soul, I hope to see the day that Polly’s Law is brought into being. As I sit in my garden, surrounded by the evidence of my children’s play, by flowers in bloom, trees in full leaf, with my bare feet connecting with the Earth that sustains us all, I know for my children’s sake and yours that this law must surely come to pass. It is not enough to hold to account retrospectively those who seek to harm people and the planet for their own gain.
Pauline Helene Higgins was born on 4th July 1968, the daughter of a meteorologist and an artist, and was raised in the hills of the Highlands of Scotland. Her childhood was immersed in nature, tying her life to soil and tree, water and sky. She became a barrister, an international lawyer, an awardwinning author and a climate-change activist. Nine years ago, she took a proposal to the United Nations International Law Commission to have The Rome Statute altered to include the crime of Ecocide, a term used to portray environmental harm: that is, damage to, and destruction or loss of ecosystems and the living beings that rely on those ecosystems for life. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was established in July 2002 and currently includes four primary International Crimes Against Peace – genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression. Polly’s
And now that you know who Polly Higgins was, and all she stood for, remember her. Speak her name. Tell her story to your children. Become an Earth Protector and stand beside the memory of her, for the Earth and all life upon it. Be part of the process to reach the world of peace she hoped to see. Dare to be great. And maybe one day, one day soon, every politician, every CEO, every head of state, every single person responsible for ecocide will know her name too. 82
NO SERIAL NUMBER "Polly is crouching on her favorite tree (stump), this is where she would go to re-energize, a special and “holy” place for her, key to her spiritual practice and way of working" Words by Sylvain Guenot
(1) Dare to be great: Polly Higgins at TEDxWhitechapel www.youtu.be/QPUmN88htCo (2) Una ley contra el Ecocidio - Polly Higgins, Abogada de la Tierra (NL - sub ES) www.youtu.be/-rCLyY2CQT0 (3) A Conversation with Eco Heroine Polly Higgins 30th August 2018 www.youtube.be/vG-aeRUFu8A Ecocide, the 5th Crime Against Peace: Polly Higgins at TEDxExeter www.youtu.be/8EuxYzQ65H4
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“Stolen land, stolen culture, stolen climate”: tackling oil sponsorship of the arts and culture Article based on an interview with Danny Chivers, BP or not BP? Photography by BP or not BP?
On 10th June 2019, BP or not BP? organised an action at the BP Portrait Awards, an internationally famous portrait prize and the main event that BP sponsors at the National Portrait Gallery in the UK. This sponsorship puts artists in a really difficult position because portrait artists don’t have many high-profile opportunities. If you’re an artist and you have any concerns about the fossil-fuel industry, you have to leave your ethics at the door in order to take part in the awards. It’s really problematic. This year, the day before the awards, one of the judges of the awards spoke out against the BP sponsorship, which is unprecedented. On the night of the awards party, BP or not BP? blockaded all the pedestrian entrances into the portrait gallery. There were people sitting in doorways, attached to gates with bicycle locks, so that the guests had to wait outside. While they were waiting, some portrait artists and a cartoonist were creating live artwork outside the gallery in front of them. The main focus of the artwork was the portraits of frontline defenders from around the world, people from communities who are fighting back against BP and climate change. They were bringing their faces, and their voices, and their stories into that space. After half an hour the gallery decided they had had enough of the disruption. They figured out that they could get the guests in if they put down some plastic steps and invited them to climb over a wall. So, all the VIPs, in their smart evening outfits, were clambering over this wall, past the artists and into the gallery. The whole spectacle was completely bizarre. At the event senior executives from BP were presiding with horror on their faces. We also gave out fake awards programs that we’d made to look like the real thing, but containing the portraits of the frontline environmental activists and the senior BP executives who were in the room that night. There were photos of them with information about BP. We didn’t want to stop the event from happening but we wanted to cause some disruption to show the other side of the story. Why BP or not BP? exists: facing the climate emergency The story begins in 2012, when BP sponsored the London Olympics as the official Sustainability Partner (yes, really). They also sponsored the Cultural Olympiad, which involves many cultural events in the UK, including the World Shakespeare Festival. In 2012, for the first time that we know of, Shakespeare plays were being sponsored by an oil company. A group of us who were friends in Oxford, people who were concerned about climate change but also theatre lovers, saw this happening and thought that this needed to be challenged. One of the major reasons that society hasn’t tackled climate change yet is because of the power of the fuel industry: their 84
NO SERIAL NUMBER political influence, their lobbying, their push to extract more and more fuels we can’t afford to burn. One of the ways in which they get away with these activities is by sponsoring arts and culture. It gives them this veneer of legitimacy, this social licence that allows them to present themselves as an acceptable industry. They shape a narrative that says, ‘Look, we’re an important part of society, look at all the art we support’. By challenging this narrative, we could actually remove a really important part of the fossil fuel industry’s power and loosen its grip on our culture, our public policy and our public spaces. This is incredibly important at this moment of climate crisis. BP or not BP? was initially inspired by a group called Liberate Tate, which formed in 2010. They were creating art without permission in Tate galleries because Tate was sponsored by BP. If they’re using art to challenge sponsorship of an art gallery, we thought, then we could use theatre to challenge oil sponsorship of a theatre. We then thought: Let’s buy tickets to some of these oil-sponsored plays. Let’s go along as though we’re normal members of the audience and five minutes before the start of the play, let’s jump on stage without permission and create our own little performance in Shakespearean style, using Shakespearean language and costume, referring to the play, but being all about oil, climate change, pollution, and human rights. What would happen? Would we get thrown off, would we get booed? What would be the response? And so we started doing this and we got a fantastic response, with laughter and applause from the audience. Before too long, actors, playwrights, directors, people in the theatre world, came out in support of what we were doing. We were getting lots of media coverage, especially in the theatre press. By the end of that season of BP-sponsored plays, suddenly the BP sponsorship of the Royal Shakespeare Company was significantly downgraded. So we started creating performances in other oil-sponsored museums and galleries, and our group grew and grew. From small numbers of people jumping onto a stage we now have these enormous flash-mob performances of hundreds of people taking over the British Museum. We also had other types of actions. Once we had a performance where we had a map of cities around the world that suffer from rising sea levels from climate change. We had visitors from around the world in the museum finding their own homes on that map and talking to us about what it meant for them to be at risk and what they felt about BP sponsoring the museum. That was incredibly powerful. BP doesn’t want to interact with the public, except on its own terms. It’s spending all this money on sponsorship and advertising so it can put its message out there and not be challenged. These arts and cultural institutions become something that BP can then hide behind. When there’s criticism of these sponsorship deals, BP rarely responds itself. Instead, we have the discomfiting sight of directors of art galleries, museums, and theatres defending the oil industry, which is not what these overwhelmingly publicly-funded institutions should be doing. Meanwhile, BP has been talking about renewables for 30 years and yet, at this moment in time, in the middle of this horrific climate crisis, only 3% of its investments are in renewables. 97% are still in oil and gas. It is fundamentally an oil and gas company that is not going to change voluntarily.
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ISSUE 17 We urgently need to reduce the power and influence of these industries. We need to create alternatives, decentralise and develop more publicly-controlled, democratic energy systems, organised from the bottom up, rather than these enormous centralised, ridiculously powerful fossil-fuel companies. We need a just transition where the people currently working in fossil-fuel industries, of which there are a lot, need to be given opportunities, skills, and training to transition into other jobs in other sectors - particularly in the clean energy sector, and sustainable transport. Interconnected struggles: workers’ rights, geopolitical interests and stolen culture BP or not BP? is trying to get this handful of often very elite managers, directors, and trustees at the top of these arts institutions to stop promoting the fossil-fuel industry in the middle of a climate crisis. One of the concerns with the British Museum in particular is how many of these trustees are drawn from the corporate and financial sectors. These Boards are disproportionately made up of wealthy white men from these financial and corporate backgrounds, who are incredibly detached from the actual struggles on the ground. While doing these kind of rebel performances in these arts and cultural spaces we realised that there were a lot of other injustices in those spaces too. We felt we could not stand in a space just talking about oil sponsorship and not be aware of the interconnections with other issues, such as stolen culture and the colonial nature of many of the museum displays, workers’ rights in the building, and the growing threat of privatisation. These issues are coming from the same place. In many cases, the same decision-makers are involved. If we were to stand in these spaces and only talk about oil sponsorship, we’d risk marginalising or undermining these campaigns. So one of the things we did was to start talking to the PCS Union, who represent thousands of workers in museums and galleries in the UK. In 2014, hundreds of workers at the Shell-sponsored National Gallery were on strike against the outsourcing of their jobs. We talked to their PCS union and decided to do a performance that tackled both issues: the Shell sponsorship and privatisation. As a result, we organised a pop-up musical at the press launch of the Shell-sponsored Rembrandt exhibition in solidarity with the strikers. BP doesn’t just put its logo on the walls of the British Museum; it actively sponsors exhibitions that will help it to pursue its geopolitical goals. It chooses to sponsor exhibitions that allow it to then work with governments where it’s trying to get oil and gas drilling off the ground. In 2015, BP sponsored an exhibition of indigenous Australian artefacts when it was trying to establish offshore drilling in Australia and faced a lot of opposition, including from indigenous peoples in Australia who were leading the fight against offshore drilling. There was a very specific aim by BP to present itself as a supporter of indigenous culture and history at a very strategic moment. In the same year, BP sponsored a “Days of the Dead” event in partnership with the Mexican government at the British Museum. This was at a moment when BP was bidding for new oil leases in Mexico. Then in 2016, BP sponsored an exhibit in partnership with the Egyptian government. In 2017 it was sponsoring one in partnership with the Russian government. And then in 2018 and 2019, BP sponsored exhibits from Assyria, just when it was facing major protests against its activities in Iraq. BP behaves in this neo-colonial way by going to these 86
NO SERIAL NUMBER countries and extracting resources against the wishes of the local population and causing damage and harm. It’s also a major player in the neo-colonialism of climate change - dumping pollution in the atmosphere in a way that disproportionately affects those around the world who have done the least to cause the problem, and who, in many cases, are least equipped to deal with the impacts. So in our own campaign we couldn’t talk about BP sponsoring the indigenous Australia exhibition without also talking about the fact that quite a few of the items in that exhibition were severely contested. We made connections with indigenous Australian activists who were calling for the return of these artefacts and organised a small performance at a press launch of that exhibition. We dressed as robbers and held a banner saying “stolen land, stolen culture, stolen climate”. We then developed an afternoon-long performance in consultation with Indigenous Australian activists like Gary Murray and Tony Birch, with a pop-up oil rig and someone playing the role of a British colonial explorer bringing loads of stolen stuff for the museum. We also read out messages from frontline activists in Australia, making sure that their voices were brought into the space. In 2017 BP sponsored an exhibition of artefacts from the Russian permafrost. These were artefacts that were actively being damaged by the melting ice caused by climate change. If that wasn’t ridiculous and offensive enough, they then sponsored an exhibition featuring objects from ancient Iraq, when BP was significantly complicit in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Thanks to Freedom of Information research by the author Greg Muttit we know that BP was actively lobbying the British government for access to Iraq’s oil before the invasion. After the invasion, they got a huge slice of the Rumaila Oil Field, with an incredibly sweet deal that massively benefits BP at the expense of the Iraqi people. Similarly, in this case we decided to work in partnership with people from Iraq. Earlier in 2018, we connected with some amazing British-Iraqi activists. We first organised a performance at the press launch in the autumn of 2018, and then created a double moment of resistance to the exhibition in January and February 2019. All the group members of Iraqi heritage were taking the lead on helping us develop the right messaging around the exhibition and a performance that would directly include Iraqi voices. One of the members went to Baghdad and collected information and testimonies about what was happening on the ground to feed back into the performances. We had an alternative exhibition from Iraqi artists in the P21 Gallery, just a short walk from the British Museum, in which there was art which directly challenged the oil industry’s role in Iraq and the protests against BP that still are very active there. We also created this enormous performance, the largest we have ever created, inside the British Museum. It was a giant piece of living artwork, a tapestry of words and phrases woven together with designs from Iraqi artist Mariwan Jalal. This living artwork wove together the story of BP’s sponsorship, the British Museum, colonialism, stolen culture, the Iraq war, and the climate crisis, into one giant interlocking series of phrases that we then wrapped around the entire central rotunda of the British Museum. We had 200 metres of artwork surrounding the entire rotunda - 350 activists and protesters joined. The UK environmental movement has often made the mistake of treating frontline struggles in the Global South in a symbolic or tokenistic way - for example, using people’s stories, quotes and photos without their consent, as a way to 87
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promote our own causes rather than work together to provide a platform for their voices, and find agreed common ground for shared messaging and campaigning. I’m not saying that our group is perfect on any of this, we still get plenty of things wrong and are learning all the time, but this is one key thing we’ve learned that we hope other climate activists take on board - the importance of trying to do genuine solidarity work, taking a lead from the frontlines and ensuring they have the final say over how their words and photos are used and how their stories are told.
In just the last couple of months, we’ve seen major voices from within the arts and theatre world (such as Mark Rylance, Miriam Margolyes, Rachel Whiteread, Anish Kapoor and Anthony Gormley) speak out against BP sponsorship, hitting the UK headlines in a powerful way and forcing BP to directly respond to our criticisms rather than just hide behind the institutions. Just this week, the Egyptian author Ahdaf Soueif resigned as a British Museum trustee, naming the BP sponsorship as one of her major reasons (along with the museum’s failures on workers’ rights and repatriation). It feels like the tide is turning. It’s an exciting time to be involved if anyone wants to know more, they can contact us via our website at www.bp-or-not-bp.org.
Today we are starting to see some victories. Because of this sustained pressure from artists, activists, and people inside and outside the arts world, we’ve seen the end of BP sponsorship of the Tate. We’ve seen the end of BP sponsorship of the Edinburgh Festival. Shell no longer sponsors the National Gallery. The Southbank Centre’s series of international concerts isn’t sponsored by Shell anymore. Earlier this year, the Edinburgh Science Festival dropped their sponsorship from oil companies and pledged to never again be sponsored by the fossil-fuel industry. There are victories being won by this movement of which we are one branch. BP or not BP? is a part of this wider #FossilFreeCulture movement globally which is scoring important victories around the world. 88
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Learning about CO2 in school Words by Dr Jennifer Rudd
W
e’re a trans-disciplinary team with expertise in chemistry, education, psychology and digital fiction. We are passionate about bringing climate change education to school students. We’ve developed three interactive workshops combining science with the creative arts to teach 13 and 14 year olds about their carbon footprint and how they contribute to climate change. We track their sense of personal responsibility for their own carbon footprint through the three workshops using simple questionnaires. The workshop links the Welsh Government’s Future Generations Act “A globally responsible Wales” with the new school curriculum encouraging the development of “ethical informed citizens who understand and consider the impact of their actions when making choices and acting”.
An excerpt from Linda and Akachi’s story When I was 13 years old, my class went to a candy factory to learn about large-scale industry and production. We saw tonnes of plastic being proccesed and shaped, coloured and changed into candy packaging. They gave us a huge bag of candy each at the end which really cheered me up and I was munching on the soft apple ones I asked my teacher: 'We know the ingredients to make the candy but how do they make the plastic?' I don't know Linda, do some research when you get home.' I did do some research but it seemed too complicated so I shut down the laptop and went to bed. The next morning, I saw on the news pictures of volcanoes and ice bergs melting and a concept called ‘climate ‘change’. 2 weeks later we went on a trip to Malawi as a family and I met a boy called Akachi. We were instantly best friends. Their village was beautiful and really calm but he took me to an isolated area of their land. It was dry and the crops were dead. He said a drought might come soon and they don’t have enough food or water to keep them alive if that happens. I was determined to help Akachi. Read the full story online: www.youandco2.org/stgames/ coemai01.html
Briefly, workshop 1 explores the definition and chemistry of a carbon footprint, involving hands-on chemical modelling. We ask the students to think about the first 2 hours of their day and calculate their carbon footprint using a reference sheet. We then ask them to think about how to cut that carbon footprint by one third. We put the carbon footprint of food and activities into units of “balloons” to try to make it more accessible. For example, if I said to you a can of coca cola had a carbon footprint of 160 g it wouldn’t mean much to you. However, if I saw it has a carbon footprint of 10 balloons you can then picture the carbon footprint. The second workshop sees the students explore a custombuilt digital fiction called “No World for Tomorrow”. In the story a small group of humans live in a colony on the moon. Every action made by an individual has a direct impact on everyone else. The students make decisions as part of the story which change the ending – a “choose your own adventure” story. They get to explore the various options we currently have for dealing with climate change – burying one’s head in the sand, political action, activism, collaboration with peer groups.
What can we all do? Teach about climate change through everything you do!
In workshop 3, the students write their own digital fictions, combining computer programming with creative writing. The students use Twine, which is an open-source coding language. Using this language the student can write stories with in-built decisions. We’ve had a number of different topics covered – from plastic reduction, to holiday destinations and travel options, to my favourite; “Linda and Akachi’s story”. You can read a selection on our website www.youandco2.org We are now looking at expanding this project into more schools and carrying out more in depth behavioural psychology studies to find out whether these workshops can effect behavioural changes in the participants.
Teachers can attend The One United Nations Climate Change Learning Partnership (UN CC:Learn) courses that make up the Climate Change Teacher Certification: Children; Cities; Human Health; Gender & Environment; and International Legal Regime. The link to a webinar on how to become an accredited teacher is here: www.melanieharwood.kartra.com/page/ DrBatchelderWebinarInfoPage There is also a petition to make global climate change a compulsory topic in education www.petition.parliament.uk/petitions/260280 Finally @teachSDGs and @merylbatchelder are good to follow on Twitter
Contacts: Dr Jennifer Rudd (Principal Investigator), Dr R. Lyle Skains, Dr Ruth Horry, Dr David Aldous You And CO2 is a collaborative work from Swansea, Bangor and Cardiff Metropolitan Universities supported by the Welsh Crucible programme. #youandco2 - www.youandco2.org - j.a.rudd@swansea.ac.uk 89
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Borderless Painting according to Carne Griffiths Painting is an exploration of materials. It crosses borders. At the heart of it is chemistry, or the study of substances their characteristics, composition, identification, preparation, and reactions. They can be natural or artificial, organic or non-organic. You then have to make your choice. It might be your choice to use and promote natural chemicals where possible. The aim of this is to eliminate or at least limit the use of synthetic products and the harm they cause. Such an introduction is necessary for a book about painting, which presents and proposes alternatives to traditional artist’s paints (oils, watercolours, etc.) and discusses the author’s interest in natural substances and materials. This is The Organic Painter by Carne Griffiths. By the title and cover alone you can tell it will suggest unusual choices which promise surprising and unique results. Carne Griffiths’ painting explores, mixes and blends elements together. And he does it by starting with painting materials (liquids, writing inks, vegetable inks), and then continues with painting tools (not only paintbrushes but feathers, leaves, petals, and stamps etc.). Straight from the introduction, experimentation reigns. Here, those who want to try their hand at this type of painterly experimentation will find a preparatory sheet. The second section of the book is entirely dedicated to projects and is divided into three sections (Extending Traditional Techniques, Using Thread and Stitching in your Work, Cutting Your own Rubber Stamp). These guide the aspiring artist as they build up their basic experimental technique, blending, mixing and matching colours, preparations, methods, and shapes.
Exhibitions Highlighting Environmental Precariousness and Species Extinction: Alison Brown’s Artistic Journey
The style is fluid, the colours mix together. The tools alternate and get muddled up. The figures take shape and blend together. The strokes of the faces transform to become leaves and flowers. The techniques overlap, blend together, get tangled up, and become muddled. Lines, brushstrokes, and marks all come together to create an unexpected and unpredictable subject which communicates not so much its physical borders - which are vague - as the complexity of Griffiths’ inner world.
According to the WWF, ‘cotton is the most widespread profitable non-food crop in the world. Its production provides income for more than 250 million people worldwide and employs almost 7% of all labour in developing countries. Approximately half of all textiles are made of cotton.’(1) However, the overuse of toxic chemicals and water in its production, along with other factors such as fast fashion, means its future is unsustainable for our planet. Alison Brown highlights this issue and suggests alternative fibres in her art piece Say No to the Bag, on show at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA) gallery in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter during October 2019. When moving house last year, she discovered she owned twenty-eight cotton promotional bags. Every scrap has been cut up and sewn together to make a ‘Wendy House’ of patched cotton, with information on more sustainable fabric suggestions, such as linen and Tencel, inside (2). The message: reuse, reduce, recycle. The tent will also have another life after the exhibition as a playhouse for her small granddaughter.
The author’s ability to communicate, share, and teach his painting experience is undeniable. Just as undeniable is his ability to communicate his art and artistic flair through his innovative painting techniques.
The precarious state of our planet’s future potential to nourish and provide for us and succeeding generations is a thread running through much of the work of this international exhibition entitled Fragility, curated by Prism textile group. Showcasing sixty talented makers using fabric, thread, and mixed media in their practice, the theme of Fragility has produced an exciting variety of art pieces originally 90
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seen at Hoxton Arches gallery in London in June. From Canada, Israel, The Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK, the overwhelming message is not the hopelessness of climate change gone too far, but that as individuals, by making small changes in our habits, we can limit our impact on the planet’s diminishing resources.
fishing, climate change, or greed - puffins, snowy owls, turtle doves, grey parrots and yellow-breasted buntings, to name a few, are all under threat. Alison’s large rusty woven wire nest harbours hand-built porcelain funerary urns for these species. She hopes ‘there are ways in which we can conserve and protect their eco-systems, if only we inform ourselves and act’.
In the past Alison has frequently used her artist’s voice to highlight environmental issues, from over fishing in CODeddeCODED (2014), to the problem of microplastics in sand Drift (2011), the latter a collaboration with Jackie Langfeld which involved hand-rolling over 5000 felt balls of ‘sand’, while Jackie made the detritus of plastic. Alison recently graduated with a Masters degree from Bath School of Art and Design, majoring in Ceramics, but utilising her textile and jewellery skills to create unique pieces inspired by bits and stuff collected while out walking. Like a Bowerbird she reuses the overlooked and discarded, recreating another potential life. This is the bedrock of her creative oeuvre: reusing waste products in a variety of ways highlights our wasteful society, Alison suggests ‘It’s just a small thing, choose our battles, but do what we can.’ Funeral for a Species, also on show at the RBSA, highlights her love of birds, which has consistently featured throughout her long career of making. BirdLife International’s 2018 report ‘State of the world’s birds: taking the pulse of the planet’ (3) plainly states that many of our most familiar birds are rapidly facing extinction due to over-
Fragility is on show at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists gallery (RBSA) from 8th-19th October 2019. For more information on artists taking part go to www.prismtextiles. co.uk and www.rbsa.org.uk Alison Brown’s blog and website can be found at www.alisonbrownceramics.wordpress.com She is opening her workshop during Devon Open Studios 7th-22nd September 2019. For more information go to www.devonartistnetwork.co.uk/event-series/devon-openstudios (1) www.worldwildlife.org/industries/cotton. (2) www.the-eco-market.com/tencel-fabric/ (3) BirdLife International (2018) State of the world’s birds: taking the pulse of the planet. Cambridge, UK: BirdLife International. 91
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A mAGAZINE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRAFT MOVEMENT Why the name “No Serial Number”? Because nature and craft share a common characteristic, they are not made in series. They are both the result of an organic, slow process of growth and development. Not one leaf is the same, nor is a handmade creation. Crafts remind us that our hands and minds can work in tune with our natural environment to make things that are useful, or simply beautiful. As a society, we are in urgent need to slow down and preserve our collective environmental and artisanal heritages from unsustainable production practices and corporate greed. No Serial Number Magazine is a humble attempt to explore how creativity, nature, activism and business intersect in contemporary society. Who is it for? artists, artisans, casual makers, craftivists, and conscious citizens Topics textile arts • natural colours • traditional trades and crafts • creative upcycling and salvaging • slow fashion • zero-waste lifestyle • biodiversity • grassroots environmental movements INDEPENDENTLY PUBLISHED BY NO SERIAL NUMBER ISSN 2516-1776 (Print) ISSN 2516-1784 (Online)
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