one man's trash is another man's trash
camila salcedo
august 17 - september 26
Made from discarded clothing from Soulpepper Theatre’s wardrobe department, one man’s trash is another man’s trash serves as a commentary on Canadians' negative contributions to the growth of the fast fashion industry. The act of donating, which is regarded as an act of "good faith", has incredibly harmful repercussions. The 20 sq feet of clothes that hangs from the ceiling is a visual representation of the 1 billion pounds of clothes (about 5 billion times what you see) "donated" by Canadians yearly to Majority World Countries such as Kenya, where second-hand clothes are imported and resold as mitumba "or bundles" of largely unwanted clothes that often end up dumped and burned and diminish local sustainable fashion economies, or Chile, where 60K tonnes of clothes are dumped yearly at the Atacama desert, leaching chemicals into the waterways and contributing to the global climate crisis.
Through the installation, artist Camila Salcedo invites participants to reflect on their own habits of consumption and urges them to consider the lifecycle of the clothes in their closets from often unethical production to ultimately becoming trash – beginning and ending the cycle with exploitation of humans, economies and land in the Global South.
about the artist
Camila Salcedo
Camila Salcedo is an interdisciplinary artist, curator and facilitator born in Venezuela and based in Tkaronto, working primarily in textiles, digital art and community art practices. Their work is centred around upcycling both materially by reusing and mending textiles, and digitally by appropriating found audio and video footage.
Location:
Young Centre for the Performing Arts
Sandra Faire and Ivan Fecan Atrium
50 Tank House Lane, Toronto, ON M5A 3C4
one man's trash is another man's trash is happening in conjunction with Worn Stories: Wardrobe Upcycling Workshop Series
Contact: Jacqui Arntfield, Community Activator: jacqui.arntfield@soulpepper.ca