A considered collection, highly focused on the impacts of the ever-increasing devastation of climate change on those most vulnerable, often displaced from their homes, families, and countries due to evicting flooding, uninhabitable conditions and vanishing land masses. This devastation is increasingly worsened by the startling rate of increasing sea levels drowning livelihoods. This collection aims to highlight individuals who are most affected by climate change yet are often overlooked by mainstream media.
To highlight and honour such personal accounts of individuals affected by the destruction of the earth, this collection emphasises the faces of two individuals forced to become environmental refugees due to the rapid increase in uninhabitable living conditions caused by climate change. The concept has been communicated through the exploration of bold, muti-layered screen prints, developed from the delicate, tonal studies of individuals voicing their realities. The delicate study of both the individual portraits is fundamental to the deeper connection, portrayal and understanding intertwined within the collection. To communicate the environmental impacts driving the concept of this collection, all materials have been sourced with the highest consideration to their impact, sustainability, and recyclability. Reflecting this, the collection has been fully constructed using donated factory sample cotton and jersey t-shirts, donated boat signal flags which were on their way to landfill and an old steamboat sail which have been carefully hand crafted into a unique, slow, repurposed textile, where the upmost care has been taken to restore and preserve unique details from the historic steamboat sail. The careful, handcrafted textiles became the forefront of the collection, the time intensive, weeklong process of hand weaving highly saturated bold reds, yellows, navy, oranges and contrasting greys drive the intensity and importance of the message highlighted by the collection. Furthermore, the natural drape, shape and physical weight of the garments was heavily influenced by fisherman at sea, taking inspiration from heavy duty waterproof over coats, battered edges caused by the beating of harsh weather elements and the juxtaposition of floatation devices to communicate the effects of Sinking In a Crumbling Climate.
