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Hidden and Complicit explore the global nature of textiles and clothing production, exploitation in the industry and our relationship as consumers to the value of labour.
Both works use unwanted clothing pieced and patched together to create a distorted global map that charts where our clothes are made and who drives the demand for cheap labour. These patchwork cartograms, where the countries’ geographic size is altered to be directly proportional, depict textile and clothing export and import statistics.
Hidden shows the statistics of exported clothing, within which are stories of exploitation and global shifts in production impacted by politics, war, poverty and colonial legacies.
Complicit shows the widespread demand for imported clothing and how we are all connected in driving down the value of labour.
These works reflect that even the unequivocal data is hard to navigate and draw conclusions from. There are no simple solutions to stop modern slavery in the clothing and textile industry because the issues are hidden and ever shifting but as consumers we remain complicit if we just continue to look away.
Hidden and Complicit were commissioned as part of ‘Undisclosed’, exhibited at The Hostry, Norwich.