Summary: In this episode of the Ecologies in Practice podcast, host Ashar speaks with artist and researcher Lois Klassen, to discuss the pressing issue of textile waste, and the outcomes of the Processing Textile Waste tour and seminar workshop that took place in October 2024. This workshop was part of the Ecologies in Practice podcast project, organized by producer Amanda White and presented in partnership with the Centre for Sustainable Curating, and Goodwill Commercial Solutions. Lois shares her personal journey with textiles, her research focus on ethical engagement, and the importance of understanding both local and global perspectives around textile waste management.
BIo: Lois Klassen is an artist, writer, and researcher known for projects that engage participants in creative actions that deliberately face ethical demand by way of social, aesthetic, and material methods. The project, Reading the Migration Library, collaboratively produced small edition publications related to migration, displacement, and diaspora. Klassen’s small press, Light Factory Publications, follows her long-standing involvement in mail art and open social and cultural networks. Her current zine series, Practices of Everyday Ethics notates critical reflections on ethics and textile waste, middle or third positionalities, and the rights to labour. Klassen was a 2020 Fulbright Fellow at University of Texas in El Paso (Center for Inter-American Border Studies and the Ruben Center for the Visual Arts). She completed a PhD in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University, a Master of Applied Art at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, a Diploma of Art History from UBC, and advanced textile art studies at the former Capilano College. Lois Klassen serves as the coordinator of the Emily Carr University Research Ethics Board, and is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Interactive Art and Technology, SFU.
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Links:
Info about the Tour and Seminar project
Info about the cushions made for the CSC as part of the workshop: https://sustainablecurating.ca/exhibitions-and-projects/cushions/
Further Resources
Global Issue:
The OR Foundation. The Best Resistance Is an Alternative. https://theor.org/
Ricketts, Liz, and Branson Skinner. Stop Waste Colonialism: Leveraging Extended Producer Responsibility to Catalyze a Justice-Led Circular Textiles Economy. The Or Foundation, 2023, https://stopwastecolonialism.org/.
Podcast: Serumaga, Nikissi, and Bobby Kolade. Vintage or Violence. project about fast fashion waste from a pan-african perspective https://www.vintageorviolence.com/
For Makers:
Podcast: Check Your Thread. a podcast about sewing more sustainably https://checkyourthread.com/
Fabric Sustainability Index & Fabric Life Cycle Assessment EXPLAINED | Core Fabrics. Directed by Core Fabrics, 2024. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALfq_QynRpo.
Canadian Fibreshed network. https://www.canadianfibreshed.org/
Lois Klassen, Practices of Everyday Ethics, Volume 1: Yoga Bolsters and Dog Beds“ (2022) and “Practices of Everyday Ethics, Volume 2: Meditations on Textile Waste” (2023), Vancouver: Light Factory Publications. Both are also available for free download here – https://lightfactorypublications.ca/title/meditations-on-textile-waste/
Social Enterprise “recirculated textiles”:
https://www.goodwillindustries.ca/commercial-solutions/
Our Social Fabric (Vancouver) – https://oursocialfabric.ca/
Textile Museum: https://textilemuseum.ca/education/our-textile-reuse-program
Maker space in Hamilton: https://empiremakespace.com/