The Sustainable Future Lies in Indigenous Tradition
[Music]
thank you
[Applause]
there is a mid-1970s photograph of an
old man
on the beach in gaza around him a halo
of vibrant bundles of yarn in blues
yellows
reds stretching all the way back to the
point
at which water meets sand the photo is a
tantalizing glimpse of a palestine
which has been crystallized in history
and almost
forgotten when i first saw this
photograph
i had absolutely no idea what this man
was doing
but i was captivated after a few weeks
of research
i learned that each individual bundle of
yarn
had been washed in the sea water behind
this man
in order to preserve the colors and that
before they ended up on the beach here
the yarns which were probably wool or
linen or cotton
had been naturally dyed with plants and
spices that were native to palestine
eventually all these yarns would make
their way to weavers all
over palestine to be woven into clothing
rugs and ultimately into the fabric of
our heritage
this man was just one link in a long
chain an intimate creative network
between palestinians
and their land as a creative who works
at the intersection of fashion
culture and politics i found this
photograph
both beautiful because it’s a part of my
culture that i didn’t know existed
and heartbreaking because it’s a part of
my culture which no longer
is common practice
learning all of this falling in love
with this way of being and creating
i couldn’t help but ask why have these
practices and indigenous practices in
general
been pushed to the edge of extinction
trying to answer this question led me to
the palestinian town of al-majdal
located on the mediterranean sea some 20
kilometers north of ghazia
is the town of almajdan arguably the
heart
of palestine’s textile industry famous
for its hand looms
it was said that collectively wove
enough fabric to cover the whole
of palestine i was fascinated by this
town
because it’s a window onto a world a
world in which
we used and made natural linen
cotton wool which was naturally dyed and
hand woven with care a world in which
all of that was the status quo
now if you haven’t heard of al-majdal
that’s because
it no longer exists when palestinians
were forcibly expelled from their homes
and their land in 1948
the palestinians of al-majdal became
refugees
their town was raised to the ground and
their textile traditions
were threatened with extinction
we saw this happen in india indonesia
mali guatemala with the chuchua peoples
of the andes
with the first nations we see this
happening
now with indigenous peoples all over the
world
now i know you might be asking what’s
the big deal it’s just yarn and fabric
right
well it’s a lot more than that and
is a microcosm of something a lot bigger
at play
something that’s continuing to unfold
today
and it’s inherently connected to the
climate crisis
for generations the west has invalidated
and erased indigenous knowledge
and ways of being knowledge which is
deeply rooted
in communication and active
collaboration
with mother nature this type of
relationship
fostered a balance between us and
the earth but the refusal to listen to
and center
the indigenous perspective has pushed us
way
out of balance and it turns out that the
world depends on this indigenous
knowledge
to protect a planet on the brink of
disaster
for example
traditional palestinian embroidery is
typically done in what we call
tatriz circles in which embroiderers
work together in a circle
often storytelling and singing and each
individual
stitch is done by hand this means that
some garments can take up to six
months to complete and the garments
often stay in our closets
for decades if not generations passing
from mother
to daughter now with a world that now
experiences
52 seasons a year this can be pretty
hard to wrap your head around
and when i say 52 seasons i’m referring
to the micro collections that brands
release
every single week that’s a pretty
radical departure from the world that
our grandparents
or even our parents knew in which we had
clothes for hot weather
and clothes for cold weather now with
brands turning
out collections every week in
combination with the throwaway culture
that we’ve developed
it’s estimated that we throw away 92
million tons of clothing every
year and that’s a number that’s expected
to keep rising
in the coming years now most of that
clothing waste contains polyester
the most commonly used fabric in the
fashion industry today
so polyester is made from oil which
means that it’s essentially plastic
in the form of fabric and it takes
hundreds of years for it to decompose
now if any of these facts are hard for
you to wrap your head around
or to process it could be because we
have the privilege to not have to
process these facts
the global north ships and dumps
most of this waste into countries
throughout
africa and asia leaving the global south
to deal with the problems created by the
global north
now the green movement has started
taking up practices
to challenge and change this reality
practices which by the way
have been native to black indigenous and
people of colors
for centuries the irony is
that as these countries countries
throughout europe
and america replicate these exact
practices
it is black indigenous and people of
color who are affected by
and devastated by the impacts of climate
change the most
the fight for our survival as a species
has been declared
and endeavors to save the planet are
finally getting more and more attention
but in order for us to make real
progress
we need to first acknowledge the
colonial power structures
which shaped and continue to shape the
world that we’re in today
and we need to center black indigenous
and people of color in the conversation
now reimagining the future doesn’t stop
at our relationship with the environment
but we need to extend it to our
relationship with people
specifically the people who make our
clothes
so last year i designed the dress
which included a belt featuring
traditional palestinian tatris
or embroidery the belts were embroidered
here in a women’s cooperative in
palestine
and there were five different designs
one embroider assigned to each design
and because each embroider had her own
work pace
based on her specific work-life balance
then each design
was ready and shipped out to customers
at different times
so if you ordered the dress in red
then you were amongst the last people to
receive your dress
and that’s because while working on the
belt the embroiderer
suddenly and unexpectedly lost her
daughter who was hit and killed by a
truck
do you see this woman differently now
she is no longer an artisan or a
producer
but she is a mother a wife and a
daughter
who has now lost her own daughter
so where was the space for that reality
in the conversation
between the customer and the brand
where was the space for that reality in
the conversation when i started getting
emails from customers
asking and sometimes demanding to know
why it was taking
so long to receive their dresses
in these moments i realized how much
we’ve
dehumanized clothing how much we’ve
de-centered people
in the production process of the clothes
that we wear
this was a pivotal moment for me and it
established my goal
of challenging and restructuring the
standard consumer producer relationship
which has been set by corporations who
would rather have you know next to
nothing about the people who make our
clothes
so now i want to ask you do you know
who cut and sewed the clothes that
you’re wearing right now
do you know who harvested the plants to
make the fabric that you’re wearing
right now
do you know whether you’re wearing
natural or synthetic fabrics
none of those questions are meant to
make you feel bad
i also don’t know the answers to a lot
of these questions
and frankly the responsibility to answer
these questions
shouldn’t fall on the shoulders of the
people when
shopping ethically is in and of itself a
privilege
it is the system the brands the
legislation and the policies
which should take the responsibility of
providing these answers for us
but we need to put pressure on them by
asking
the questions so we can start by asking
why are the lives of textile artists
hidden
and unknown by us the wearers of the
clothes that they make
why aren’t we involved in the production
process of the clothes which we wear on
our bodies
as physical extensions of our beings
as means of expressing who we are and
where we come from and who we want to be
that day
because if we knew too much about those
people
then we might want to do something about
the ways that they’re being
treated and then companies would have a
really hard time
unevenly distributing their revenue
i recently had a talk with a women-run
ethical fashion enterprise in rural
india
they explained that they have an issue
when people address them as garment
workers or textile laborers
according to them it’s much more than a
labor job
we have to involve all of our senses
it is a creative process of the heart
and the soul the personal stories
of these textile artisans are woven
sewn and dyed into the essence of the
very garments
which then cocoon our bodies made by the
same
hands which pour juice and brush hair
and pick fruit and tuck loved ones into
bed
this is so intimate and this type of
intimacy and connection is the backbone
of a truly sustainable future
now i know you might be asking
what is this talk about i’ve talked
about the environment
human rights indigenous peoples fashion
and the answer is all of the above
true sustainability is inherently
intersectional
none of those issues are isolated in
order for us to make
real progress we need to approach the
idea of
change from an intersectional
perspective
indigenous people create slowly and
meticulously
not because they aren’t educated or
technologically advanced
but because they understand that the
nature
of creation is an inherently slow
and human process they understand
that what we take from the earth must
return
to the earth as food and not poison
in the fight to better the future we not
only need to
learn from black indigenous and people
of color
but we need to center them in the
conversation
indigenous creativity storytelling
and knowledge are our means of survival
so i want to leave you with this fashion
is personal is political fashion is a
window
onto entire communities which often
aren’t seen or heard but are exploited
if we pull the curtain back and just
look through those windows
then we’ll know that fashion is never
just
fashion so this all
brings us back to the photo of the old
man on the beach in ghazni
he is smiling and i can’t help but think
that he knew the gravity and the grace
of his work he was one of the last
remaining artisans
with knowledge of this labor and i can’t
help
but overanalyze this photo just a bit
further
a cigarette dangles delicately from the
old man’s smiling mouth
and he looks up and into the camera
and thus into the future
thank you