On the occasion of the World Environment Day (5 June), the Embassy of Sweden in Baku launched a preview of Sustainable Fashion: The future of textiles exhibition in collaboration with Azerkhalcha OJSC and Stone Chronicle Museum, on 10 June 2021. The exhibition is produced by the Swedish Institute, a public agency that promotes Sweden around the world, together with researchers and fashion experts. It highlights the fashion industry’s major challenges and showcases Swedish solutions and initiatives for a more sustainable future.
The fashion industry is one of the most pollutant industries in the world. We reuse or recycle only 20 percent of 62 million tonnes of clothing that we consume globally per year. The exhibition explains how we can, both as producers and consumers, minimize undesirable environmental effects of the fashion industry by maximizing repairing, remaking, reusing, and recycling of clothing products and their components. It also shows new artistic and curatorial reflections, both on Swedish and Azerbaijani fashion scene, on ecological art and textile production as well as traditional woman handicraft.
Within the context of the exhibition, newly created design patterns of Azerbaijani carpets are displayed by Azerkhalcha OJSC on a digital format. A colorful digitalization – a personal artistic vision on the future of this naturally pure textile by Azerbaijani artist Orkhan Mammadov creates a completely different design pattern, which combines traditional craftmanship and artistic know-how with modern digital trends.
The exhibition also shows art works of invited artists Ludmila Christeseva (Sweden) and Gunel Ravilova (Azerbaijan). Through a multimedia dialogue, the artists offer two different perspectives on fashion, textile and ecology in two different guises and attempt to identify the role of textiles in the shaping of female identity.
The designer Naila Dadashova used the richness of Azerbaijani carpet art in her works. She used pieces of Karabakh rugs as well as carpet ornaments as details in her clothes. In one of her works you can see a shawl made with “qurama” (assembly) technique. This technique allowed her to create clothes and items from small pieces of fabric, which is very cost-effective and beautiful at the same time.
Art curator of the exhibition is Konul Rafiyeva.
The Sustainable Fashion: The future of textiles exhibition is shown at Stone Chronicles Museum from 11 June until 9 July 2021. The entrance is free of charge.
