EVERYTHING MUST GO

EVERYTHING MUST GO is a 3-day exhibition with workshops and talks that tells the hidden story of our unwanted clothes.
The exhibition will be open to the public on Friday 20 – Sunday 22 January from 11am – 6pm
Bargehouse
Oxo Tower Wharf
Bargehouse Street
South Bank
London SE1 9PH
Contact for press and further information: Joby Williams (williamsjoby@gmail.com)
SUMMARY
‘A long chain of charity and commerce binds the world’s richest and poorest people in an accidental intimacy. It’s a curious feature of the global age that hardly anybody at either end knows it.’
George Packer, New York Times magazine, March 2002
Western consumers want to believe that they can have a new coat every winter and do  a  good deed by donating clothes to needy recipients in the developing world through the simple discourse of charity recycling. The reality is, of course, more complex and more murky than many would suspect.
Dr Lucy Norris (UCL Anthropologist) has spent the last five years researching textile recycling as part of Waste of the World, an academic research project investigating global flows of waste including textiles, food, ships and nuclear energy.
For the end-of-project event, Waste of the World has collaborated with a group of artists and designers to present a public exhibition that tells the textile story. The exhibition is co-curated by Dr Lucy Norris and artist Clare Patey, and produced by arts organisation Holy Mountain.
Visitors are invited to bring an unwanted item of clothing and to follow its journey as it is sold for reuse and recycling across the world. Invisible global waste economies are brought into public view, as do the people involved and the impact that these businesses have upon their lives.
Says Dr Lucy Norris, “The research challenges our comfortable notion that our waste can be contained, cleaned and endlessly recycled and reclaims waste as a filthy, powerful and potentially dangerous material flow that has to be reckoned with.”
Accompanying the exhibition is a programme of talks ‘TALKING RUBBISH’ where researchers, designers, filmmakers, business entrepreneurs and third sector leaders engage with the issues raised and their implications for the way in which we think about our old clothing as well as wider issues around waste and recycling.
In her research in Panipat, India, Dr Norris has found poor labour conditions, low wages, and extremely low- quality products. Often made from potentially reusable Western clothing, its value has been destroyed through shredding because markets cannot be found for the amount of used clothing now in circulation.
The show contextualises this research with collaborative projects including Meghna Gupta’s debut film Unravel and photographs by  Tim Mitchell, both focussing on  the shoddy industry in Panipat, north India. Lizzie Harrison of Remade in Leeds will host workshops on  upcycling old clothing and rug-making from scraps, and a piece of textile designer Kate Goldsworthy’s resurfaced shoddy textile will be on display. The show also highlights Oxfam’s innovative ‘Frip Ethique’ social enterprise in Senegal, which sorts unsold clothing from the charity’s UK shops for sale in the local market, creating livelihoods and raising vital funds for its work in West Africa.”
Everything Must Go marks a return to Bargehouse for Clare Patey, formerly artistic director of The Museum Of, a highly innovative and collaborative museum project that took place in the same building from 1998 to 2001.