Banners for Solidarity

These works are made as an expression of solidarity with garment workers and serve to create a space to reflect on the potential for the collective power needed to change the global garment industry and protect our planet. The banners are made from used clothing that has been taken apart and put back together in new ways. In taking apart and making anew, the process of making the work points to the need to create new more just and sustainable systems.

I work with used clothing to gesture towards the reality that consumers in the global north purchase more than we need and discard vast amounts of clothing. Additionally, the red and gold colored used clothing I work with references banners made of similar colors in the early 1900’s by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in New York City, which were carried at Labor Day marches and protests. Red, moreover, is the color of urgency and alarm, an added layer to my visual descriptions of our climate predicament.

The installation images are from a recent exhibition at the Alice Rogers Gallery in Collegeville, Minnesota.