ART, EDUCATION, YOUTH AND CIRCULARITY: THE DETOXCIRCULART PROJECT
*Featured photo: Plot, 2022, 350 kg of textile waste from natural fibers, site-specific installation, project in collaboration with Detox Consortium and Terra Media, Academy of Fashion and Costume, Milan. ©Photo by Fabio Mantovani
Art, education, young people and circularity are the key components of the DetoxCirculArt project presented by Consorzio CID – Consorzio Italiano Implementing Detox as part of Milan’s Salone del Mobile initiatives.
The project, implemented in collaboration with the Accademia del Costume & Moda and the TerraMedia Association, is part of the Consortium’s awareness-raising actions presented by President Andrea Cavicchi to obtain greater attention and change the fashion system’s approach to issues related to a truly sustainable circular economy in textile and clothing production.
This project addressed art, young people and consumers and featured contemporary artist Francesca Pasquali, alongside ten first-year students of the 1st Level Academic Diploma in ‘Costume and Fashion’, coordinated and directed by lecturer Santo Costanzo curated by Davide Sarchioni of the TerraMedia Association.
The work PLOT is the outcome of a workshop dedicated to creative reuse where waste material not only finds new life but does so by acquiring greater value than the original material. The work started in February with an in-depth study of the textile production cycles and sustainability strategies of the Consortium companies and through artist’s visits to the production plants. Subsequently, the work, conceived by Francesca Pasquali, was coordinated by lecturer Santo Costanzo, who guided the students through the weaves and textures, creating a site-specific work using precious textile scraps resulting from the production of the Detox Consortium companies in Prato.
The result is a large, immersive textile installation. The work is conceived as a pathway between different architectures, inviting the viewer to experience it directly, to delve into the meanderings of the material among the interweaving of fabrics and selvedges in a highly suggestive game of formal and chromatic cross-references, of tactile and sensorial associations.
The title “Plot”, commonly used in the language of literary or film criticism, alludes to the weave and interweave of the textile material and its formal elaboration. It tells the story of the work and its creation, with a view to sustainability, recycling and regeneration that transforms waste into a resource to investigate new circular economy practices through contemporary creativity.
About 350 kg of waste originating from the production processes of the Consortium companies were used to create the work, in particular from Antilotex Flock Italia, Archè, Azeta Filati, Berto Industria Tessile, Candiani Denim, Casati Flock, Emmetex, Progetto Lana, Lanificio dell’Olivo, Texcene, Texmoda, Jersey Mode.
The collective work ‘Plot’ occupies the entire space of one of the rooms on the ground floor of the Accademia Costume & Moda in Milan and will be visible until 22 July 2022.
