The Sea Between Us

Background The fashion and textile industry is recognised as one of the world's largest pollutants to the environment and struggles to cope with the pressures of mass consumerism and cheap production. At the same time, single-use plastic, once seen as the material of the future, has become a significant threat to our oceans and marine life. Responses to both these problems generally focus on the production and consumption of both materials. The exhibition The Sea between Us / The illuminated Sea, a collaborative project between fashion and textile designers at Universidade Anhembi Morumbi-LABMODAR and RMIT designers, focused instead on the aesthetic possibilities of discarded plastic and on the forms of exchange and shared responsibilities that the oceans make possible. Contribution The exhibition curated by Sprynskyj and Boyd, of the fashion practice S!X, sought to shift the tone of the response to these two problems from the pragmatic to the poetic. Discarded plastic was collected in Melbourne and Sao Paolo and exchanged between the two cities. Fourteen artists and designers from RMIT University and LABMODAR at the Universidade Anhembi Morumbi in Brazil then shredded, remade and embellished the plastic from their collaborators into garments and accessories. The transformation of the material from neglected ephemera to delicate treasure was encouraged by the choice of exhibition space, a National Trust building filled with artworks and furniture evocative of a relation to things needing to be conserved. Significance This project was made possible by funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to foster relationships between academic institutions in Australia and Brazil. It was supported by the National Trust of Victoria.