EVENTS

The exhibition, A Long Engagement, focuses on our relationship with clothing. Asking if through acts of care is prolonged engagement can benefit both wearer and worn agents in this interconnection. Conceived as a reversed exhibition process which conceptually supports the desire to upset the typical direction of humancentric consumption, from instant gratification to the slower reward of anticipation. Each involved in the exhibition will be empowered to add a layer, a trace of a life together.

This exhibition is focused on extending the life cycle of garments. Through approaches such as situating humans , as co-contributors through care and repair, acts which the prolonged existence of our second skins. The act of repair brings together traditional and DIY craft techniques and design thinking towards a more sustainable future through co-relationship with garments.

The Exhibition makes space for empowerment in co-creation. By inviting participants to add a layer, a trace of a life together with their clothes. Not taking ownership, not being a user, but being on a journey together as caretakers in collaboration with our second skins.

by doing so, to bring attention to the social, environmental and psychological benefits of extending the life cycle of our clothing. This will be achieved through a series of installations, artifacts and public workshops which examine our current relationship to clothing. Allowing a space to shift the anthropocentric and largely passive consumer relationship towards becoming co-agents in maintaining second skins. Through simple sewing and mending processes of care and repair will demonstrate how de-centreing humans from passive consumers to active collaborators in the care of clothing is beneficial to human relationships and importantly in more-than-human worlds.

“For me, wear-and tear is symbolic of a personal individual path, with breakages (mended or raw) as a powerful visualization of our activities, memories of moments, the scars of our everyday, an integral part of our clothes` stories.” Orsola de Castro