Manifold

BACKGROUND: Manifold was an installation of multiple textile works and a film featured in Slow Fashion Studio: Alternative approaches to fashion, an exhibition curated by Jenny Underwood. This exhibition was shown in conjunction with the Goethe Institut's international travelling exhibition, Fast Fashion: The Dark Side of Fashion at RMIT Gallery from July 21 to September 9, 2017. Slow Fashion Studio responded to social and environmental issues raised in the Fast Fashion exhibition by questioning current relationships with clothing and materials to consider how ethical and sustainable systems of fashion with local knowledge, relationships and skills as a foundation could operate globally. SIGNIFICANCE: Manifold specifically responded to issues of textile waste by provoking viewers to consider how challenging and expanding preconceived notions of materials through explorations of technique and affect could contribute to more socially and environmentally engaged approaches to fashion practice. Manifold fused laser cutting technology and traditional craft handwork to draw from lace textile motifs and shift the performativity of materials predominately used to manufacture non-fashion objects, such as machine parts and bedding, and re-contextualise them as fashion artefacts. CONTRIBUTION: Manifold proposed two techniques using laser cutting technology to re-imagine materials and their functions and also showed a textile work that changed and gained a patina over the course of the exhibition. Film was also explored as a mode of communication to shift affective responses to materials and contribute solutions for more sustainable ways of producing and consuming. The exhibition was widely attended and an image of Manifold was selected to publicise the Slow Fashion exhibition on the RMIT website. Furthermore, the exhibition was discussed on a number of national platforms, such as Radio National program "Blueprint for Living" and in the Sydney Morning Herald.