Nature's Clothesline

Artists recycle some of the perfectly good clothing that Canadians discard at huge cost to the environment.

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Bright bales of used and sorted clothing – cashmere, leather, T-shirts, denim – open a discussion around consumer habits at Nature’s Clothesline, an exhibition at the Museum of Surrey in Metro Vancouver. 

Elsewhere, text panels printed on the backs of garments convey statistics, such as the 12 million tons of textile goods that Canadians send to landfills each year. 

This group show, on view until Feb. 21, balances these excesses with works by British Columbia artists, mostly from the Vancouver area, who transform recycled textiles. 

Sola Fiedler’s sweeping tapestries depict host cities for the Olympic Games: Vancouver and Salt Lake City in this exhibition. Snow sparkles on mountain ridges while familiar buildings and bridges, detailed right down to the orange container cranes in Vancouver’s harbour, are crisply focused. 

The punchline is that Fiedler unravelled, cleaned and organized the wool from countless thrift-store sweaters. More than evoking a specific place, her work speaks of the hidden labour involved not just in staging global sporting events, but also in making art and unmaking garments.

Recycling may be virtuous, but it’s often perceived as tatty and drab. Artist Amy Walker explodes this notion with garments she made during a residency and collaboration with artist Sharon Kallis, of the EartHand Gleaners Society, a Vancouver group that champions local sustainable materials. The museum’s walls are decked with paper sewing patterns and chic yet practical clothing – all fashioned from cast-offs. It’s a complete wardrobe, from felted vests to lace-trimmed underwear. Each garment’s “price tag” represents what it would cost if its maker were paid a living wage. 

Ruth Scheuing’s computer-aided Jacquard weaving includes textured dishtowels with colourful borders. Cotton production involves pesticides and heavy water usage on land removed from agricultural production. Scheuing weaves aerial views of forest fires and typhoons, linking global warming to individual domestic choices – consumption multiplies into consequence.

Tapestry artist Barbara Heller’s woven beaches feature pebbles, stray feathers and the odd bone, but also bottle caps, plastic shards and disposable straws. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch comes to mind, a symbol of a world choked by trash. 

Semiahmoo First Nation artist Roxanne Charles dresses mannequins in wild costumes that incorporate fur, cedar, fish skin leather, brocade and lace. Recycled street banners stream from the sleeves. Her mashups consider cultural attitudes to consumption and value.

While Nature’s Clothesline focuses on fabric, it more broadly proposes that what contemporary life has consigned to the dump is the vision and know-how to create sustainable – and potentially beautiful – transformations. The artists featured in the show demonstrate how to win it back. ■ 

Nature’s Clothesline at the Surrey Museum in Metro Vancouver from Oct. 29, 2020 to Feb. 21, 2021.

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Museum of Surrey

17710 56A Avenue, Surrey, British Columbia V3S 5H8

604-592-6956

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