On 22 of November 2017 I was invited to speak to the Paris launch of WEAR sustain, a new €3m pan-European project that aims to shift the development of the wearables and e-textile landscape towards a more sustainable and ethical approach.

The event hosted by ENSAD Paris addressed the future of ethical and sustainable wearables and e-textiles and was the occasion to announce the project’s second Open Call to fund wearables and smart textiles concepts that address ethics and sustainability.

My presentation pointed out to the situation of textiles workers in Romanian factories and critically questioned the way in which artists together with designers, technologists, engineers co-creating a wearable prototype that aims at setting up a commercial activity can promote awareness and can advance an agenda related to the poor working conditions in the Eastern-European factories. Can we speak of wearable products as ethical objects that take into consideration the working conditions and relationships of workers like those of Eastern Europe? Can an “ethical”  and “sustainable” object produce social change? 

I am looking forward to seeing the commercial products that Wear Sustain EU project will launch on the market.