Contemporary Design

Artivism: 15,523 liters of water

It takes 15,523 liters of water to make a pair of jeans.

Background

We all know that there’s a problem with fast fashion. Would be silly to think otherwise. Reports after reports and articles after articles show the ugly truth behind the industry that provides cute and cool clothes for the majority of people, stating facts and crunching numbers too big to fully understand. Why is it so that the truth is out there but not many acknowledge it? The problem we are facing is too broad to comprehend and needs to be sliced into more easily digestible sections. It’s not surprising that people don’t know how to contribute when you feel like nothing is enough. But the truth is that individuals can have an impact when provided with easy information.

When we made research about the clothing industry we were surprised on how little we actually knew about the topic. We were astonished that the global textiles and clothing industry is responsible for the consumption of 79 billion cubic metres of fresh water, 1 715 million tons of CO2 emissions and 92 million tons of waste annually. By 2030 these numbers will increase by at least 50%. (European Union, 2019.) An average pair of jeans uses up to 15 523 liters of fresh water (BBC, 2018). Due to cotton productions excessive water usage the once world’s 4th largest freshwater lake Aral Sea is now a desert (NASA, Shrinking Aral Sea). But what does this actually mean? How much is that much? Understanding the volume behind numbers on paper is hard.

This is where our art activism steps in.

Process

From the start we knew that we wanted to criticize societal and ecological issues. On this course Critical Design Practises we chose artivism as our method of engagement. Our aim with this project was to encourage a change in society, raise awareness, make people question, evoke conversation and educate. One of the key ways to shift consumer habits into more sustainable manner is to provide easy information through different mediums.

Throughout our project has been an evolution to a more and more concise form. From a vast amount of information we have narrowed it down to a specific viewpoint.

We started by researching fast fashion, technology and food industry. By collecting knowledge from all of these industries we soon realised that it was far too much to handle in one art project. We decided to focus our research on fast fashion only.

Our research consisted of articles, documentaries, reports and news. We gathered information about materials, production, labor, environmental issues, logistics, retail, consumer use, disposal and recycling. Because of the scale of the industry, fast fashion related articles are full of numbers too big to comprehend. Not until we started making calculations scaling these numbers to more understandable format we felt like we got a glimpse of the magnitude of the problem. It’s easier to get a sense of the volume when it’s scaled to something concrete and recognizable.

Screenshots from “Aral Sea: The sea that dried up in 40 years - BBC News” (2015) and “Stacey Dooley Investigates - Fashion's Dirty Secrets” (2018).

A documentary by the BBC “Stacey Dooley Investigates - Fashion's Dirty Secrets” (2018) covered the high costs of cheap fashion. The documentary stated that the production of an average pair of jeans uses up to 15 523 liters of fresh water. This number seemed large but we were curious to see how much that really is. We calculated that if a person drinks average 2 liters per day, 730 liters per year, 15 523 liters lasts up to 21 years. This number 21 put things in perspective. It’s crazy to think that we, aged 23 and 24, could have drank almost all of our lives so far with the amount of water used for only one pair of jeans. This fact ended up being the one we wanted to share with people through our work.

A pair of jeans became our object for storytelling. We chose them for their widespread distribution and global commonness. Jeans are a symbol of the modern era and a reflection of their owners individuality. We wanted to focus on the amount of water used in its production and decided to narrate that through an installation exhibited in our course exhibition Critical Design Practices 2019. Our installation “15 523 liters of water” is built in a room with an illusion of it being a water tank. The installation utilizes the 3D dimension of a space, video projection, sound, and a pair of jeans. The purpose is to demonstrate the amount of water that goes into making jeans in an easily understandable way. In other words convert numbers to volume.

After the exhibition the installation continues its way to public by occupying spaces and spreading information to people in unexpected and easily accessible situations.