State of Fashion, ArtEZ University of the Arts and NewTexEco would like to invite you to the Assembly Available to Promise: Hidden Systems and Unseen Labour on Friday 29 May from 09:30 – 18:00 h, in the City Hall in Arnhem. Bringing together artists, designers, students, researchers, companies, industry representatives and policy makers, the Assembly will expose a wide variety of perspectives on hidden systems and unseen labour in the fashion industry.

What are hidden systems in the fashion industry? Which labour is unseen, and what are its effects? How can we make visible unseen labour that urgently needs to be seen? What are constructive strategies to do so? Through interactive presentations, workshops, creative interventions, activations, exhibitions, and panel conversations, participants are invited to collectively explore how exposing hidden structures can lead to new, transformative fashion practices.

Building upon the five pillars of the State of Fashion biennale, the Assembly will focus on:

raw materials and processes of production, from fibres to spinning, weaving, dyeing, and how all these fibres carry traces of specific histories and locations (develop);

how clothing travels around the world, the global circulation of fashioned materials (distribute);

the symbolic domain of fashion production through visual and digital media, how the fashion system cultivates desire, and the attention economy (hype);

how fashion is experienced through everyday embodied practices of wearing clothes (experience);

speculating and reimagining different (more-than-human) fashion systems (transform).

See the full program and reserve your free ticket here.