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Woven Secrets – The Multifaceted Processes Behind the Clothing we Wear

In contemporary consumer culture, clothing is often viewed primarily as a finished product, with little attention given to the processes behind its creation. This perspective reduces textiles to a commodity, a mere object for purchase, use, and eventual disposal. Consumers engage with clothing on a superficial level, appreciating its aesthetics or branding without considering the labor, craftsmanship, and environmental costs involved in its production. Fast fashion, in particular, exacerbates this issue, encouraging rapid consumption and disposability, where garments are worn briefly before being discarded. The complex social, economic, and ecological implications behind clothing remain largely invisible, as fashion is increasingly treated as transient and replaceable, rather than as a meaningful cultural artifact.

2022’s documenta 15 in Kassel, one of Germany’s most significant contemporary art events centered around a distinctly non-commercial approach – positioning itself as a critical space for artistic experimentation rather than a marketplace for art –, presented a spectacular and eye-opening installation by the multidisciplinary Nest Collective from Nairobi, Kenya. Return To Sender – Delivery Details took the shape of a pavilion entirely constructed out of bales of used garments discarded by the industries of the Global North in Africa. Placed on the backdrop of a lush, pristine recreational garden, Return to Sender acts as a jarring confrontation with the dark underbelly of the textile and fashion industries, raising important questions about its ethics and so-called sustainability. The bales of old clothes, unfit for recycling, coupled with the art-documentary displayed inside, reveal harsh, yet unseen truths.

This is just one facet of the sprawling global textile industry made visible in the context of contemporary art, which has the potential to also illuminate the social, economical and even the emotional side of fashion and craftsmanship. The second edition of FABER’s Design Signals research program, in collaboration with the Timișoara Polytechnic University, so aptly titled “Woven Secrets”, highlights the transformation of Timișoara’s textile industry and its role in the city’s economic and social development through a candid and thought-provoking approach. Curator Martina Muzi, designer and design teacher at Design Academy Eindhoven, envisioned the endeavour as an exhibition of knowledge, structured on multiple layers of meaning, “Woven Secrets” brings together new works by Romanian designers, historical artifacts, reclaimed and restored items and documentary photography. In this sense, the exhibition proposes multiple ways of seeing and engaging with textiles: tactility, immersion, memory and data analysis, a balanced blend of historical facts and subjective narratives. It encourages a layered understanding of textile design and industry by positioning the various works in dialogue with one another, allowing viewers to begin with familiar, everyday interactions with clothing, deepening into more complex topics such as recycling or the less visible aspects of the industry – the inner workings of textile factories and the overlooked lives of factory workers – and ultimately zooming out into a macro-level analysis of global market trends. The works, the artifacts, the sleek design and emotional charge of “Woven Secrets” offer a comprehensive perspective on the multifaceted processes behind the clothing we wear.

Our interaction with textiles is often immediate and instinctive, rooted in their primary function to cover and protect the body. When encountering a piece of clothing, our first response is almost always tactile – we reach out to touch it. While textiles serve a practical purpose, they also carry personal significance, influencing our expressions of identity and experiences of comfort. However, this engagement often occurs subconsciously, as we tend to overlook the intricate processes involved in its production. Amalia Săftoiu’s Knitting Night & Day and Dinu Bodiciu’s Balkan Baroque are two approachable pieces that cater to the familiarity of clothing in our everyday lives, while also urging us to consider their craftsmanship and cultural background. Knitting Night & Day, an exquisite knitted cape crafted by Ami Amalia – a Transylvanian brand direct-to-consumer brand – is a masterful mix of traditional and contemporary techniques. The complex garment, featuring two self-portraits by artist Felicia Simion, exemplifies how the design process can necessitate continuous readjustments to the workshop in order to create unique pieces. This adaptability implies a labor of love that subverts capitalist expectations of production turnaround, emphasizing the value of craftsmanship and creativity over mass production, which often lacks the efficiency or economic feasibility required for certain items.

Similarly, Balkan Baroque, Bodiciu’s line of experimental streetwear were handcrafted using thrifted mass-produced sportswear and traditional macramé textiles – a nod to Timișoara’s Ottoman and Hapsburg heritage – and were the only items for sale in the entire show, at quite a hefty price. This clash of styles opens an important discussion on gentrification and the influence of global capitalism on local traditions, as well as the practice of recycling and repurposing old garments. As such, both works encourage viewers to reevaluate the complex relationship between design, production methods, and economic realities, and consider the dedication and passion that go into creating each piece.

Unsolved Patterns, the collaborative work of Andreea Pleșa, Mihaela Vișovan and Cătălin-Cristian Botean, delves further into textile repurposing and reveals the innerworkings of textile mass-production and waste. The artists’ investigation at the Cottontex factory focused on standardized production processes that leave seemingly unusable textile remnants in their wake. The irregular shapes of fabric – jersey, in this case – resulted from standard pattern cutting are refashioned into wearables through various methods of minimizing waste. This multilayered display also features videos that illustrate a number of ways in which these pieces could be reconfigured into new experimental clothing, challenging our current notions of waste and recycling.

While there is a growing concern for recycling and sustainability, there is often a significant gap in our understanding of the complexities involved in recycling processes, including the limitations, inefficiencies, and environmental impact of certain recycling practices. The work Caution! Rotating Blades by Alesia Cîdă explores the final stage of the production system through a collaboration with a new recycling center in Timișoara, active for the past two years. Fascinated by the textile shredder, the designer recreated its process into a playful interactive installation aimed at children. Factory machinery, particularly large and dangerous equipment like this one, is often difficult for the public to fully comprehend or engage with, as it exists outside the realm of everyday experience. These industrial processes, though essential, remain largely invisible and abstract to most. However, this installation simplifies and humanizes this concept and presents it in a more accessible and digestible way, successfully demystifing the machinery but also inviting viewers to better understand the complexities of textile waste and recycling through a tangible, approachable medium. Caution! Rotating Blades also highlights the challenge of unrecyclable components, such as the white threads and tags on our clothing. Recycling, as the work demonstrates, is labor-intensive and involves numerous compromises.

Waste, recycling, machinery, it all boils down to the human element, the invisible lives of factory workers, the unsung heroes of the textile industry. Coming back to Unsolved Patterns, this work also confronts the public with the unseen and less glamorous side of the fashion world: the tedious manual labor that factory workers are subjected to. A distinct piece of clothing, resembling a polo shirt – typically associated with the upper echelons of society – made out of a fragile transparent material – comes into stark contrast with the rest of the garments on display, symbolizing the vulnerable conditions in which textile workers operate. The accompanying video work makes use of artificial intelligence to trace the repetitive movements of textile manufacturers during sewing processes in the factory, translating these motions into a new clothing pattern. This approach honors the labor and skill of the workers while also exploring speculative ways of integrating cutting-edge technology with manual craftsmanship. Here, only the workers’ hands appear at the forefront.

The candid work What’s next by Maria Dombrov & Gabriela Rada makes space and gives voice to eight factory employees who tell their personal stories of their daily threads. The two designers worked closely with a diverse crew of craftsmen from Timișoara’s UTT spinning mill, one of Europe’s last remaining industrial knitting yarn producers. Some interviewees are new on the factory floor, while others have been here for over thirty years, yet each have a special relationship with yarn, a material whose production dates back to the stone age. Their sincere testimonies reveal the uncertainty of this ancestral craft as they ponder on whether they might be UTT’s last generation. Each of the eight portrait-monitors is corelated with woven frames of yarn in varying techniques, styles and raw materials, all akin to be touched. This work redefines the factory, traditionally valued for its economic efficiency, by emphasizing the importance of community and craftsmanship within the endangered mill. The stories of What’s next serve as a social and archival node within the exhibition, connecting the historical artifacts present throughout the space.

Communist memorabilia dating back from the 1970s and 1980s, like the renowned Tetra cotton valued for its comfort, ease of maintenance and durability, or a warm Welcome Letter, received by new employees on their first day of work, are meant to highlight the golden days of the local textile industry. Other items, such as eighty spools of thread, as well as all the reconditioned chairs and tables used in the exhibition were recovered from the soon to be demolished 1 Iunie Factory and serve as a stark reminder of the city’s unforgiving real-estate development. Not only are individual jobs at risk because of global economic shifts, but heritage industries face a similar threat, as traditional skills, practices, and local economies tied to these crafts are rapidly declining.

Back to Our Sheep by Lavinia Ghimbășan of Studio Nalba is a complex series of works centered around the pastoral heritage of wool, yet another ancestral material with a crucial role in the development of early civilizations. The series begins with the recognition that Romanian wool, once a valuable resource, has largely fallen out of use in the country’s textile industry, leaving farmers burdened with disposing of surplus wool. This material, now often discarded due to its poor condition at harvest, is difficult to process on an industrial scale, leading to its gradual disappearance from local economies. In this context, Ghimbășan proposes we go back to basics when it comes to wool, focusing both on its historical and cultural significance and its potential use in the future. By revisiting traditional practices such as shearing, spinning, and weaving, and considering the local history of small producers and shepherd’s garments, the project creates a dialogue between past and present. One striking installation within this series is Wool’s spatial experience, a sound booth insulated with locally sourced wool, invites the audience to experiment with the acoustic properties of this material. This soft construction is also meant to evoke the very animals that produce wool, with its dusty colors and hoofs for legs, and can be stylistically paired with the shabby shepherd’s coat, as part of the same series, and the antique loom exhibited across the room. Through collaboration with industry partners, the project explores innovative methods to reintegrate this overlooked resource into modern production systems. Can wool be processed into a high-quality fiber while still preserving archaic traditions? Back to Our Sheep explores these possibilities by blending Romanian wool with acrylic fibers, woven into a piece exhibited right across from the shepherd’s coat, further highlighting this interplay between the past and the future. In fact, this is the leitmotif of this entire series, in which wool is reimagined as not merely a discarded byproduct, but as a material with immense potential, breathing new life into the local industry, blending the forgotten with the contemporary and exploring wool’s material qualities through sustainable and innovative design approaches.

The various works, documents and artifacts presented in this exhibition are successfully woven together to uncover the secret facets behind the textiles that are so common in our lives. From familiar concepts, like thrifting and recycling, to more nuanced topics, like the economic disparities within the industry and endangered practices, from wool, yarn, sheers and looms, to communist textile samples and towards the AI powered automation of tomorrow, the exhibition “Woven Secrets” manages to capture every side of Timișoara’s rich textile industry. This nuanced curatorial approach is also grounded in hard data, seen in the infographic series by Răzvan Zamfira, from Studio Interrobang, & Victor Ionichi based on research by Norbert Petrovici, and in work with the local youth, through the Young Matters program. These two components look at the industry through both a macro and micro lens, respectively. While the infographics pinpoint the role of Romania’s textile sector within the ever-shifting global markets, revealing current economic realities, Young Matters indulges the viewers with a utopian vision of Timișoara as envisioned by the students that took part in the program, through a series of personal letters which became the basis for an experimental video work.

All in all, “Woven Secrets” tells a complex story that encapsulates history, craftsmanship, passion, labor, beauty and loss. It pays homage to the past, acknowledges the present and proposes a positive outlook on the future of textiles as a whole. The exhibition challenges our perception of clothing and textiles, so often polarized between two extremes: the allure of high fashion and the anonymity of mass production. With “Woven Secrets”, however, these extremes are bridged, shedding light on everything in between – exploring overlooked design processes, artisanal craftsmanship, and the complex socio-economic systems that lie beneath the surface of the fashion industry.

 

Following the exhibition, which took place from October 3 to November 24, the book “Woven Secrets” was published with comprehensive materials, signed by designers, researchers, textile specialists and more, disseminating all the activities of the project “Woven Secrets” from 2024. It can be found here.

POSTED BY

Marina Oprea

Marina Oprea (b.1989) lives and works in Bucharest and is the current editor of the online edition of Revista ARTA. She graduated The National University of Fine Arts in Bucharest, with a background i...

marinaoprea.com

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