Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

Eco Chic Exhibit Now On at Scandinavia House, NYC

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by Starre Vartan · 06/02/10

Righteous Fashion

Leave it to the Swedes to put together an exhibit concerning eco fashion that’s both beautiful and seriously thought-provoking. Eco Chic: Towards Sustainable Swedish Fashion, which runs through August 21st, is a multimedia endeavor that showcases the whys, the hows and the hows of sustainable design.

Video by Eco Chick Contributor Alicia Lubowski-Jahn

First up, I checked out the short film about Dem Collective, a grown-to-sewn operation in Sri Lanka which both pays workers twice the typical wage and still makes a profit (as well as utilizing low-impact fabrics in production). The film asks the right-now question, “Is there such a thing as sustainable globalization?”

Dem Collective tunic shirts

Striking to me was the exchange wherein the narrator of the film asks a local Sri Lankan worker (not employed by Dem Collective, but instead works for a typical garment manufacturer) who is agitating for local labor rights, “Should we be ashamed that we don’t pay you more for your work?” The seamstress answers, after a moment of thought, “Yes.”
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eco, exhibition, Fashion, film, men, mom, ny, NYC, sustainable, video

Oh Me Oh My! The Summer Exhibition at Art Omi

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by Alicia Lubowski-Jahn · 06/08/09

The Fields Sculpture Park 
at Omi International Arts Center
1405 County Rt. 22 
Ghent, New York 12075

Richard Nonas, Smoke, May 2009, wood, 1.5' x 80' x 90'. Photo: courtesy of the artist.

There’s always a bit more time to go see art exhibits in the summer, but it can be so hard when it’s nice out to contemplate spending a day inside. Luckily, there’s a way to do both at places like ART OMI, the PepsiCO sculpture park and Storm King Arts Center, where you can enjoy the summer sun AND revel in modern art too. June 13 (1-5pm, free admission) marks the opening of the Summer 2009 outdoor sculpture installation at ART/OMI.  

The annual Fields Sculpture Park exhibition will feature works by a selection of international artists, including Orly Genger, Richard Nonas, Julian Opie, Margeaux Walter, and Heather and Ivan Morison.  

This year’s show is curated by Bill Maynes, Kathleen Triem, and Peter Franck who have garnered works by these and other talented artists so that we might revel in the experience of sculpture under the trees.  Genger and Nonas have specially created large-scale, site-specific installations.  Be sure to also visit ART/OMI’s  Charles B. Benenson Visitors Center & Gallery, a 4,200 square foot LEED building designed by FT Architecture+Interiors.  The structure is a showcase for green design systems and a venue for ART/OMI’s other art and environment cultural offerings.

exhibition, sculpture

Human/Nature: Artists Respond To A Changing Planet

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by Alicia Lubowski-Jahn · 01/14/09

Rigo 23, Sapukay—Cry for Help (detail), 2008. Woven taquara, banana trunk fibers, feathers, wire, fishing line, caxeta. Assembled in Cananéia, Brazil, with members of the local Quilombola, Guarani, and Caiçara communities. Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco.

If San Diego’s sunny disposition isn’t enough reason to migrate there this winter, then the city’s Human/Nature: Artists Respond To A Changing Planet  exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art is certainly a special, added draw. 

Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Juggernaut, 2008. Super 16mm film digitized to HD video projection, 5:44 video loop. Courtesy of the artist and Max Prototech, New York

The show gathers the work of eight international artists, each commissioned to respond to one of eight UNESCO World Heritage Natural Sites around the globe.  The artists (Rigo 23, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Diana Thater, Ann Hamilton, Mark Dion, Xu Bing, Marcos Ramírez ERRE, and Dario Robleto) take their inspiration from destinations as far afield as the Galápagos Islands (Ecuador), Komodo National Park (Indonesia), and Mount Kenya National Park (Kenya) to produce an eclectic array of artworks dedicated to habitats and human societies in flux.  Each has highlighted the delicate relationship between precarious natural treasures and their human populations.

Dario Robleto, Some Longings Survive Death, 2008. Glacially released 50,000-year old woolly mammoth tusks, 19th-century braided-hair flowers of various lovers intertwined with glacially released woolly mammoth hair, carved ivory and bone, bocote, colored paper, silk, ribbon, typset 57 x 53 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artist and D'amelio Terras, New York; Inman Gallery, Houston; Galerie Praz-Delavallade, Paris; ACME, Los Angeles.

The far-ranging reflections of Human/Nature come together as evocations of the theme of preservation.  All of the artists have considered how we remember, that is to say, essentially how it is that we conserve.  In contemplating preservation, the artists have gathered various kinds of remnants that document life experiences – including the bones and hair of extinct animal species and the audible and imagined sounds of animals, glaciers, and struggling humans.  They have also created storehouses that preserve these memories – among them, display cases, glass beakers, house windows, and even a mobile library.

Mark Dion, Mobile Ranger Library—Komodo National Park, 2008. Mixed Media, 96 x 84 1/2 x 39 1/2 inches. Fabricated by William Feeney. Courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.

Probing the fragile balance between sustaining people and natural environments, the exhibition suggests the possibility of a unified, symbiotic, and sustainable relationship between “Human” and “Nature”.  Both the planet and a human can either sing in harmony or cry out.

Ann Hamilton, Galápagos Chorus, 2008. DVD projection, amplified cone gloves with pre-recorded animal sounds, iPods, artist's books with texts by 8th-grade students from El Colegio Nacional Galápagos. Courtesy of the artist.

The exhibition is on view at MCASD until February 1, 2009 and was organized by the museum in partnership with the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA), and the conservation organization Rare.

All photographs by Pablo Mason

exhibition, sustainability

Upcoming Exhibition: Fashion Conscious Designs that will change the world one garment at a time @ UC Davis

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by Ann Benoit · 04/24/08

As part of their “Year of Eco-Exhibitions,” the UC Davis Design Museum & Design Collective in Davis, CA will host Fashion Conscious, an exhibition focused on sustainable fashion design from May 15th thru July 13, 2008.

This exhibition explores sustainability and how it relates to the current clothing market, from the environmental impact of eco-friendly textiles to the re-evaluation of industrial manufacturing.

The exhibiting designers and companies demonstrate a commitment towards developing clothing that provides viable alternatives to the imperfect traditions of the fashion industry. Changing a long standing paradigm will not happen overnight, but by choosing fabrics and methods of production conscientiously, designers have the power to change the way farms and factories operate. The key to success is diversity and compromise.

In conjunction with this exhibit will be the Designing with Conscience ::: A Sustainable Fashion Symposium on Sunday, May 18, 2008. This symposium is focused on “looking into the fashion industry and the move towards eco-consciousness,” and includes speakers from the fashion industry and 4 panelists from the exhibition. To register for the event go here. For more info on the exhibition & the exhibitors involved, and some great info on sustainable fashion, check out this blog.

clothing, design, designer, designers, exhibition, fabric, fabrics, farm, farms, Fashion, sustainability, sustainable, sustainable fashion

San Francisco Green Fest This Weekend— Be There!

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by Ann Benoit · 11/06/07

Green Festival, The World’s Largest Environmental Expo and a joint project of Global Exchange & Co-op America is coming to San Francisco this weekend (Nov 9,10, 11) Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Concourse Exhibition Center. Tickets are on sale here.

At the Green Festivals, we’re celebrating what’s working in our communities, for people, for businesses and for the environment. Here, green means safe, healthy communities and strong, local economies. Green is the color of hope, of social and economic justice, of ecological balance.
Join us for these huge parties with a purpose. You’ll enjoy more than 200 visionary speakers and 400 green businesses in each city, great how-to workshops, green films, yoga and movement classes, green careers sessions, organic beer and wine, delicious organic cuisine and live music.

If you’re in SF this weekend, make sure to check it out! On Friday evening at 7 pm the Fest starts out with a special event, “The Environment as Our Extended Body” led by Deepak Chopra.

business, car, epa, exhibition, farm, films, Green Business, health, local, Music, Organic, parties, Wine, yoga