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12. RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION
Charlotte Thrane
INTENTION
ARTISTIC INVESTIGATION

 

The Danes are one of the population groups that buy the most clothes; our clothing consumption is 35 percent higher than the majority of the earth's population.

We each buy an average of 10.2 kilos of clothes a year, and on average we only use our cheapest clothes 7-8 times. According to a report from the Nordic Council of Ministers, 80 per cent of the clothes we throw away have 80 per cent of their lifespan left and could therefore continue to easily benefit in another context. The production of new clothes is one of the biggest climate and environmental impacts in the world, and therefore an important area to focus on if we want to achieve responsible consumption and production.

 

My artistic interpretation of goal 12: Responsible consumption and production, therefore, deals with used clothes or used shoes. In my visual art work with textiles, I draw on our daily, bodily contact with and in-depth tactile experience with e.g. clothes, bed linen and towels. In collaboration with a local group, the hunt is set for a specific type and color of used textiles. This could be sweaters, jackets or home textiles such as bedding or towels in certain color shades. A large part of this collaboration is about together becoming aware of the amount of textiles that are discarded.

 

In my work as a visual artist, I am amazed time and time again at how large quantities of fine and usable textiles are discarded. Once you have visited a recycling center or seen a huge amount of textiles for waste, you suddenly understand how extensive this huge waste is. The work itself will consist of a lot of smaller items, such as folded sweaters, folded pants or rolled-up jackets. Each element could represent an individual, and will act as a “brick” in the overall work, which together will form a large, horizontal color field. This field is built into a frame, which is mounted in the hilly landscape along the path behind Vibehus.

 

The framework represents the limitations within which we navigate together, ie. our common limited resources and time, which together we are jumping to the breaking point. The field we create represents the community we have and the way we need each other (whether we want to or not) if we are to live up to the 17 World Goals. The many immediately similar yet different bricks create associations with residents of a city, citizens of a country, community, or civilizations; that is, something greater than the individual alone.

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Photo: Sketch by Charlotte Thrane. Copyright

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Photo: Sketch by Charlotte Thrane. Copyright

Charlotte Thrane

Charlotte Thrane is a Danish visual artist with an MA art from Slade School of Fine Art, London. She has exhibited extensively in Denmark and abroad in countries such as Australia, Russia, America and the United Kingdom.

 

In her large works of art, she often uses used clothes or used mattresses. She works with textiles because they contain traces of the corpses that have been in contact with them. Each article refers to an individual, the work as a whole refers to the larger society of which we are all a part.

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