The project aims to raise awareness of how online retail not only contributes to the acceleration of resource-wasting and environmentally damaging (ultra) fast fashion, but also invisibly permeates all of our lives. Based on the description of online logistics as “fulfillment”, it questions the role of the age-old dream of never-ending supplies in times of climate change and resource scarcity and attempts to stimulate alternative options for action and paths to a “fulfilled” life: with a low-threshold, positive-emotional, creative and attention-grabbing community action in public space – on environmental issues that affect us all and that everyone can change relatively easily!
At the heart of the project is the step-by-step collaborative production of a truck sculpture made from used textiles and discarded shoes: an object that points to the apparatus behind our “uncomfortable” prosperity. The jointly produced textile sculpture is also used to teach craft skills that are suitable for transforming textiles to prolong their life and are also proven to be fun and enjoyable. These skills will be developed in a series of workshops (weaving, tufting, upcycling, lace-making, leatherworking…). At the same time, we talk: Concrete ways of changing behavior are taught and advice on consumer behavior is offered, information is provided in lectures and discussion events about the mechanisms of online commerce, its economic and ecological consequences, the effects of fast fashion and the roots of our striving for abundance and fulfillment and, in general, exchange is cultivated at all levels. From this perspective, one could perhaps even speak of a social sculpture.
Following the successful Berlin kick-off event in September 2023, hundreds of people will be personally involved in the topic every day for two weeks in May 2024 at the central Mariahilferplatz in the city of Graz. Workshops (manual and behavioral) with registration for schools and private individuals, seminars/lecture performances will deepen the acquired skills and knowledge. A discursive dinner will bring together practitioners and theorists, amateurs and professionals.
The project is designed to be participatory. Anyone can “help build” the truck sculpture in public space and become part of a collaborative art project. In addition to the general public, young people, people in social projects and educational contexts as well as (pedagogical) students are particularly addressed (in connection with the educational activities of Bis es mir vom Leibe fällt and in cooperation with media partners such as Ö1, ORF, etc.). However, it is also aimed at relevant groups such as textile artists, the zero-waste scene and upcycling community, clothing collection initiatives, classes from school projects and university institutions.
