How might we unsettle approaches to design that have tended to prioritize the prosperity of corporations, and instead, design for social and climate justice? Articles of Displacement challenges some of the colonial and capitalist regimes that have fueled fashion’s role in producing the global climate crisis: industrialization of fiber production through large scale agriculture, corporate chemical engineering, synthetic dyeing and printing processes; designed and artificial obsolescence of fashion; and the exploitation of labor and environments in the mass-manufacture of clothing. By displacing some of these approaches to design, we empowered non-human actors, ecologies, and materials in a collaborative, relational, and responsive design process that centered longevity, multi-functionality, desire, delight, collectivism, and self-determination.
Articles of Displacement was created in collaboration with plants, people, and places, which meant that designs responded to factors like the availability of dyestuffs, the size, shape, and eventual coloration of each textile, anticipated environmental conditions and bodily movements, and commitment to material longevity. De-centering and displacing profit motivation and anthropocentrism enabled shared ecologies (i.e., the habitats, natural resources, and communities around us and part of us) to guide the design and production process.
The bio-based dyestuffs used in the collection come from food waste, invasive species, plant pests, local fauna, and plants grown in small gardens. The fabrics, however, are more complex and paradoxical. Most of the textiles in this collection are made from silk or nylon. Considered “twin polyamides,” these two fibers share similar chemistry, but have a dramatically different impact on the environment. Petroleum-based nylon was the first commercially successful thermoplastic polymer and shaped the landscape of industrial manufacturing in the mid-20th century. Blending nylon with spandex accelerated the growth of activewear apparel since the 1970s. Unlike silk, which is easily weakened by ultraviolet light, heat, and abrasion, nylon is one of the most durable fibers. By using one of the culprits of climate change, Articles of Displacement addresses the inescapability of industrial capitalism’s penumbra and the products innovated under these regimes. By rebuilding connections to plants and other raw materials required for dyeing, creating inter-reliant systems of production through co-design, and employing some of the products of the plight, Articles of Displacement imagines a future where design is a collective, material, embodied, inter-species, place-making, and community-creating endeavor.
Acknowledgements
Design & studio assistants: Nadine El Nesr & Emanuelle DiCicco
Models: Kofi Acree, Catherine Blumenkamp, Bridget Conlon, Alice Doing, Park Doing, Cleah Dyer, Janna Edelman, Nadine El Nesr, Lila Frost, Kelsey Gardener, Shannon Gleeson, Denise Green, Sarah Grossman, Adam Hoffman, Olivia Santos Huertas, Colette Jarrell, Sadie Kaufman, Athena Kirk, Frances Kozen, Yaakov Leeser, Renata Leitão, Dyese Matthews, Andrea Mauri, Andrew Moisey, Elsa Moisey, Frances Violet Moisey, Gabrielle Moore, Mattie Nguyen, Sabeen Omar, Huiju Park, Olivia Park, Max Park, Pilar Parra, Nona Rohwer, Rachel Rohwer, Vanya Rohwer, Ahava Sipps, Zada Stuart, Alison Rittershaus, & Madelyn Yu
Photography: Simon Wheeler, Maosen Xu, Kat Roberts, and Denise Nicole Green
Videography: Maosen Yu
Video editing: Denise Nicole Green
Funding: Cornell Council for the Arts 2022 Biennial: Futurities, Uncertain, with additional support from the Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection and the Department of Human Centered Design in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University.
Additional thanks: Ben Anderson, Paloma Barhaugh-Bordas, Charles Beach, Susan Behan, Susie Bright, Yuki Chen, Melissa Conroy, Dane Cruz, Tina DuBois, Rachel Dunifon, John Foote, Bob Green, Jean Green, Yasser Gowayed, Kinor Jiang, Marisa LaFalce, Ashlyn Lee, PJ LeVine, Timothy Murray, Shawkay Ottmann, Carol Oddy, Apurva Pandey, Kimberly Phoenix, Kelly Reddy-Best, Kristen Rupert, Tatiana Seijas, Jooyoung Shin, Karen Steffy, Christianne White, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, The Fashion Gallery and Gallery Academic Committee
Land Acknowledgement
Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign Nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York state, and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ people, past, present, and future, to these lands and waters.
This land acknowledgment has been reviewed and approved by the traditional Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ leadership.
In addition to the Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ land acknowledgment but separate from it, the AIISP faculty would like to emphasize: Cornell’s founding was enabled in the course of a national genocide by the sale of almost one million acres of stolen Indian land under the Morrill Act of 1862. To date the university has neither officially acknowledged its complicity in this theft nor has it offered any form of restitution to the hundreds of Native communities impacted. For additional information, see the Cornell University and Indigenous Dispossession website.