Opening of "Stuff for Thought" in Nuremberg

Despite the fact that our town seems to be completely cut off from the rest of the world - and has been like that for months, with the cut-off place slowly wandering from one place to the other - I set out to go to Nuremberg yesterday because I wanted to be there for the opening of "Stuff for Thought".
The exhibition is a collaboration between the Nuremberg Bureau for Human Rights and textile artist Heidi Drahota and is connected to the annual Nuremberg Peace Award. Last year it was awarded to Amirul Haque Amin for his long-term work for the improvement of working conditions in textile production sites in Bangladesh, and the call for this show requested artwork along this topic. Heidi Drahota admits that she was nervous when the call had been issued because she was not sure that enough works would be submitted for such a topic. But it has  turned into a very interesting exhibition indeed.

Last year Heidi Drahota had alreade organized a fabric community project, which is also being shown in the exhibition.

(photo by Barbara Lange)

Several of the artists were present at the opening.

The entrance hall of the Nuremberg Rathaus is a stately venue which gets lots of visitors who are not necessarily coming for an art exhibition, but who will be confronted with these pieces on their way to municipal bureaucracy.

My quilt "Thinking of Nasrin" is positioned on a central pillar, and certainly light conditions will be better during daytime opening hours. I used several pieces of Afghan fabric and 3 Afghan embroidered squares and added a lot of hand-stitching myself. Because the embroidered squares were all made by a woman named Nasrin I decided on the quilt's title, as I kept thinking about this unknown-to-me woman while I was working on the quilt.

Barbara Lange worked on the topic of the rapidity of changes in fashion in her three-section-piece.

Jana Sterbova's work is made mostly from denim fabrics.

And Caroline Higgs' piece wonders about the people from Gambia who disappear 'Into the Blue' in search of a better life, and the connections that we, people who live in the affluent 'Western Countries', have to these people and their fate.

It is a very moving and thought-provoking exhibition and well worth seeing - until September 25.

“A good day for textile workers.”

That was one comment by an official as reported on the radio last week, after an agreement had been reached to improve working conditions for textile workers in countries such as Bangladesh and China. 70 companies have signed an agreement to guarantee that the entire production chain of their items be supervised, and that agreement was signed recently (sorry, site is in German). 

The signed companies are obliged to name their suppliers so that controls can begin, and even controlling firms will be supervised by an independent organization in the Netherlands. Within nine months several thousand textile prodution sites will be inspected to guarantee that fire safety standards are met, working conditions reach a certain level, etc. Just how thoroughly can an inspection of thousands of factories within only nine months be? Will this agreement actually change something? Or is it merely a drop in the ocean, to pacify consumers in the Western World who are temporarily upset right now, but who will willingy forget about these unpleasant incidents after hearing that now everything will be taken care of?

The repeated fatal incidents in Bangladesh have really gotten to me. I don’t usually buy clothes from any of the ‘major’ brands for which these factories were/are producing, but I am overwhelmed by the thought that the Western style of quick turnover fashion, and an unbearable ‘price awareness’ push prices down down down to such a degree that working conditions have to turn so precarious for the people in those countries that are being exploited by and for our way of life. First, textile industries in the so-called industrialized countries collapsed, because production was transferred to the developing countries. Then ever-increasing large companies keep pushing down prices, outsourcing production steps, and because the social problems are not right on our doorstep, we prefer not to notice them. And then something happens, more than a thousand people – mostly women – die.

Collapsed textile production site in Bangladesh -
picture taken from internet

And suddenly we are so upset that this could happen at all? Just how hypocriticcal can you actually get?

Two of the most interesting books I read last year were India Flint’s books  Second Skin and Eco Color. And I am currently reading a book that is very hard to read – Sustainable Fashion – because it gives you a lot of insight into the entire business and ecological effects of fibre production, shipment of materials from one part of the world to the other, and the overall effect that clothes production has on our planet. I can only read a few pages a time, and then I am so upset that I have to stop.

And yes, this does fit in with the above. For me, at least. I haven’t arrived at a conclusion for the problem. But I do think if we took more care about our clothes, didn’t change a wardrobe every few weeks, substituting one cheap T-Shirt through another, even cheaper one of a slightly lighter shade, and were willing to pay decent prices, a lot could be done for the people who are producing these garments. I am not at all convinced that globalization as it has been happening is really for the benefit of the people overall. Neither for those on the winner’s side, in the ‘Western World’, nor for those on the side where cheap labor is in abundance. This can’t be the kind of world we want to be living in, or is it?

There is still a lot that needs to be done to make sure that this agreement really marks a good day for textile workers in Bangladesh. And I think it is the responsibility of every single one of us.

Made in Bangladesh

Two fires in three days, 112 people killed and over 200 wounded (according to Campaign for Clean Clothes) because of lack of emergency exits, or locked gates. 

photo from Süddeutsche Zeitung

The victims are mostly women. Women working as seamstresses in textile factories. They were sewing for western clothing companies. Large names – US companies, German companies, Dutch companies – all well-known for their ‘bargain prices’. Bargain prices which still are mostly the company’s gains. Not more than one percent of what we pay for bargain T-Shirts of let’s say 4,99 (doesn’t matter whether we are paying dollars or euros or pounds) goes to the workers.

It is because of the companies’ lack of concern that factories in Bangladesh or Pakistan do not have sufficient fire emergency protection, or insufficient working conditions with too many people working in one room, too few emergency exits. But it is because of our, the consumers’ decision, to keep buying with these companies that these conditions prevail. We want to “save” money when buying clothes. What we are really doing is risking the lives and health of other people, so we can save a few pennies. 

Is that worth it? Is that the kind of clothes we want to be wearing?