Serious Relationships. Rethinking Fast Fashion is a series of public events designed to shed light on the context of textile theories and practices that exist at the intersection of contemporary art, fashion production, and sustainability.
The theme of sustainability is also central to the work of the St. Petersburg collective Factory of Found Clothes, whose pieces are on view in open storage at Garage. The collaboration between artists Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya (Gluklya) and Olga Egorova (Tsaplya) revolved around garments—forgotten, worn out, and left behind by their owners. Their project Shop of Traveling Things—a commentary on the realities of the 1990s, a critique of the social order, and a fantasy about a vast world without borders—can even be considered an artistic statement on sustainability and upcycling. Gluklya and Tsaplya would find clothing at flea markets and then add unusual details, such as rough seams embroidered with beads and stains adorned with decorative glass elements, helping old garments acquire subjectivity and a unique character usually absent in mass-produced new items.
Alongside overproduction, there is a growing interest in ways to extend the life of things through recycling and upcycling. This series of workshops, discussions, and lectures will help explore why the fashion industry has become one of the main threats to the environment and how to create new clothes from those already in your wardrobe. It will also offer the opportunity to examine sustainability in fashion and consider what can be done to counter the habit of buying more.