SMU Libraries X Renew Earth Sweat Shop Present RESS Midterms

SMU Libraries and Renew Earth Sweat Shop are pleased to present RESS Midterms, a multi-event project that includes a community workspace, art exhibition, workshops on craft, performances and activations, craft goods showcase, clothes adoption corner and fashion waste recycling station.

Walk In & Have Fun

Fashion Waste Recycling Station
Learn and engage in recycling processes like creating fabric yarns, and salvaging reusable items and fabric from discarded clothing.

Fashion Rescue
Adopt and rehome clothes that are still in great wearable conditions!

Craft Showcase
Come see how others in the RESS Community have transformed textile waste through sewing projects and upcycled craft works.

Workshops

Craft Workshops | Patch-Workers Unite!, Late Night Sewing, and many more
Get your hands dirty in these workshops which are formatted along the Do It With Others (DIWO) ethos where participants learn from and co-create with each other

Philosophy Workshop | “Upcycling: A Critical Exploration” by Farhan Idris
What does it mean to "upcycle" in a way that disrupts totally capitalist modes of consumption, in contrast to “eco-friendly” capitalism? Some useful philosophical and critical concepts like “creation ex-nihilo”, “immaterial labour”, “cognitive capitalism” and the “commons” will be explored, while grassroots upcycling initiatives like “jugaad” (जुगाड़), a Hindi term now popular in management discourse, will be considered.

Sign up for Upcycling: A Critical Exploration!

Exhibition & Artist Activations

Featuring Adel Ng X Shauna Goh, Agatha Lee "Agy", Alysha Rahmat Shah, Atelier Rat Bastard, Bernice Lee, Ezzam Rahman, Harshita Agarwal, Julia Winter, Lisa Teng, Nobuyuki Sugihara x Ayaka Nakamura, Shirley Soh, and Veronyka Lau.

The exhibition Renewal features new artworks by 13 artists from Singapore, Japan and The Netherlands. Created from textile waste, the artworks speak of the artists’ feelings and thoughts on a range of topics from nature and labour to art and culture. The title not only refers to the act of making something out of material waste, it also points to an updated attitude of conscious responsible living in a global community with our more-than-human kin.

The artists will be giving talks, guiding tours and sharing about their artistic practices. There will also be demonstrations, durational live performances and co-creation workshops.

Find out more at the RESS Midterms microsite.

About Renew Earth Sweat Shop

Renew Earth Sweat Shop is a community and participatory art project reacting to the environmental impact and labour conditions linked to the global fashion industry. The project attempts to ‘reverse’ sweatshops—to become what a sweatshop is not, to counter waste, to rethink labour and ultimately to renew our earth. Renew Earth Sweat Shop is a project by Post-Museum X Veronyka Lau.