WHAT'S ON
JUNE 7 - JULY 5, 2025
THE SPEED OF FASHION​
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To survive the ecological crisis we find ourselves in, we need more than the efforts of scientists and engineers – we need a massive cultural shift. Fashion offers a powerful lens through which this exhibition examines the environmental (un)sustainability of our culture and how to transform it. As an industry, fashion is a microcosm of the broader capitalist and neo-colonial systems responsible for the climate crisis. As an art form that consciously or not, every single person engages with each day – fashion can offer us a realm of new possibilities for environmental justice.
On a global scale, consumers in wealthy economies including the USA are buying more clothes than ever, and throwing them away with alarming speed, encouraged by ever faster “fast fashion” multinational companies. Fast fashion is named for the uncanny speed at which a garment is designed and available for retail sale. The production process, which under traditional retail models takes at least eight months, happens as quickly as a week under companies like Shein.
The fast fashion industry treats artists, labor, environmental impact, and the garments themselves with the same disposability in a never ending quest for speed and volume. After Western consumers have spent their time owning a garment, it’s typically exported as part of a bulk ream to countries in the Global South. Ghana imports about 15 million items of secondhand clothing each week, known locally as obroni wawu or “dead white man’s clothes.” Textile waste pollutes their rivers and ends up in landfills where synthetic garments will take centuries to decompose, releasing microplastics as they do– at ever increasing speeds as fast-fashion companies increase their turnover and incorporate AI into their production models.
The younger one is, the more unlikely they are to remember a world before this nonstop whirlwind of mostly plastic-based clothing. Many environment-responsible individuals struggle to imagine alternative systems to the one we live in. How do we disrupt this cycle of waste and exploitation? How do we slow down? The works featured in The Speed of Fashion not only document and grieve the effects of rampant consumerism and the climate crisis, but offer us new possibilities to relate to each other, to the objects in our lives, and the planet. The artists in this exhibit consider their materials tenderly, reconnecting textile to land, history, and body. Through creative reuse, the artists reject cultural norms of disposability, paving the way forward with stunning examples of transformation, reinvention, and repair.
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THE SPEED OF FASHION: PROGRAMMING
All events held at the Crow's Nest
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JUNE 21 - Everyone Has Holes in Stuff: Darning Workshop (3:30 - 5PM) RSVP here
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JUNE 28 - Lecture by artist Mo Kessler: We'll Hold This Line Until Hell Freezes Over: Lessons from the Textile Workers' Strike of 1934 (3:30 - 5PM) RSVP here
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JULY 5 - Clothing Swap (1 - 3:30PM) RSVP here
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JULY 5 - Closing Reception and Artists' Q&A Session (3:30 - 5PM) RSVP here
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Laure Drogoul's window installation "Breakdown" will remain on display until August 17
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COMING SEPTEMBER 2025
EXTREME HEAT FELLOWSHIP SHOW​
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Extreme heat is a rapidly-growing threat to public health in urban areas around the world. In Baltimore, the summer of 2024 was the second-warmest in three decades. Two dozen people died of heat-related causes in Maryland, including sanitation worker Ronald Silver. Nationally, at least 2,300 deaths were related to extreme heat, the highest number in 45 years of records. Given the trends in climate change, this threat will only continue to grow. The need to confront this threat will become ever-more important. This show will feature original art from our three fellowship winners, who will collaborate with academics from the Johns Hopkins University and with local public health professionals. The exhibit will deepen our understanding of the challenge and how to confront it.
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Our Extreme Heat Fellows are Kei Ito, Rowan Bathurst, and Rachel Stein.