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29 April 2022 New Narratives for the Fashion World - #eintshirtzumleben Rana Plaza Memorial Day Campaign Event

Exhibition, performance, fashion show and talk – on Sunday 24 April, this year’s Rana Plaza Memorial Day, the highlight of the FEMNET #eintshirtzumleben campaign took place in the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum (RJM) in Cologne. The heart of the event was the exhibition of the 19 T-shirt artworks of well-known artists, such as Vera Lossau, Lilla von Puttkamer, Pipilotti Rist, Frank Schätzing or Willi Reiche. Art instead of consumption was the motto of the campaign and at the same time the conclusion of this successful event day.

"The campaign creates new images of how fashion can be meaningful," said Christiane Overkamp, Managing Director of the Foundation for Environment and Development, in her opening speech. “We are all strongly influenced by the images of the fashion industry’s very financially strong advertising. You can't just deal with texts. You have to create alternatives with images, and this project succeeds."

These new narratives were created by the 19 T-Shirt Artworks of the participating artists, such as Cosima Hawemann, Marcel Odenbach or Jeannette de Payrebrune, who had created an individual work of art from a t-shirt for the campaign. To critically negotiate issues such as feminism, sustainability and exploitation and to make a statement for more appreciation and solidarity with the seamstresses was the decisive motivation for the artists to support the campaign, according to the curator Catharina von Poser, who led the exhibition.

"We all know the many horrific images of the textile industry and the campaign takes a different approach to things that are dear and dear to us," said campaign manager Saskia Bellem of FEMNET, who presented her personal favourite T-shirt to the audience at the beginning of the evening programme. Since the launch of the campaign last November, everything has revolved around this idea: To tell the story of one's own favorite in the closet and thus to establish the connection between seamstresses and consumers in order to generate more appreciation for people and material. "We are convinced that people will stand up for something as soon as it comes close to them," Bellem said.

had submitted. The works of art were faired during the event evening. A lot was awarded to those who, under the motto ‘Art instead of consumption’, received a self-upcycled T-shirt on the

eintshirtzumleben.de campaign page

In addition to the artists and talk guests, such as the CEO of FEMNET, Dr. Gisela Burckhardt, Claudia Lanius or Ines Imdahl from the Rheingold Salon, the positive response of the visitors illustrated the success of the approach. “I love to dress and play with fashion, but at the same time I think it is important not only to present myself in it, but also to think about all the people behind it”, says one visitor.

The voices of the seamstresses were also clearly heard through the campaign. Both on social media and on the event day itself, their personal stories were shown in the form of video messages. “We deal with the individual who made our clothes. We give a space to the dignity of this person,” says Overkamp.

The traces that the seamstresses leave on our clothes also illustrated the performance of Juliet Seger, who sewed tops with black-colored hands in the foyer of the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum.

The campaign initiated a dialogue between seamstresses and end consumers and demonstrated the room for manoeuvre of the individual. “We are suffocating in abundance. With the campaign, FEMNET aims to create a counter-model”, said CEO Dr Gisela Burckhardt. And that's been done. . All information about the campaign can be found here on our homepage, as well as the campaign website eintshirtzumleben.deand on Instagram, Twitter , Facebookand