Facing a Failure of Imagination
Sustainability is simply a design challenge, and a Climate Disaster is a failure of imagination. Sure, a certain amount of climate change is now “baked in” and already impacting us, but that doesn’t have to mean absolute disaster, we have many of the tools needed to fix the crisis, we need the courage to imagine a future more glorious than our present.
In costume design and production this means not going to the same old sources (H&M, Amazon, Walmart, JoAnn, etc…) because they are familiar, but thinking outside the box about how and where we source materials. It means being intentional with what we build from scratch versus rent, borrow, or pull. It means being generous with the things we no longer need and passing them along to a new home (NOT THRIFT STORES).
The idea that I'm MOST excited about is the idea of the “circular economy." How can we keep costume materials moving through the ecosystem of theatre and film? In 2021, I received a prize for an idea for an online sharing system, like Poshmark but for theatre supplies. My collaborator and I worked with the Canada Green Theatre Alliance and the Theatre Green Book in the UK to try to make this idea a reality but we couldn’t make the funding work.
This year, someone created a very similar platform called Pursued by Bear that will come closer to making this a reality. I am working on connecting to the founders of this platform to see if we can work together to bring this idea to the US using some of the team and funding we previously had. What I love about this idea is that it solves the “design challenge” of sourcing by helping costumes move from “unwanted” to the place they were wanted. It will give designers a new way to look for the perfect piece instead of big box stores, time consuming rental appointments, or keeping fingers crossed at the thrift store.
I hope you can join me in imagining a future where theatres celebrate abundance instead of scarcity! Thank you for supporting us so far, your contributions help us get closer to this dream everyday.
What are we reading?
To Speak for the Trees: My Life's Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest (affiliate link) is currently on my nightstand. I’m finding it a calming and inspiring read that elaborates on the impact of trees on our lives.
The Fraud of Plastic Recycling came out this week: noting that “While a minority of municipal recycling programs across the country may collect plastics with RICs #3-7, they do not actually recycle them. Instead, such plastics are incinerated or sent to landfills.” The report then goes on to describe some of the recycling processes and limitations in detail, a major factor to recyclability is also whether or not there is a market for the recycled material, making the economic feasibility a greater factor than the scientific feasibility. Moreover, fossil fuel companies have perpetuated myths of plastic recyclability to increase their own license to operate and pollute with these toxic materials. We’ll do a deeper dive into analyzing this report for Plastic Free July this summer.
Apologies for being a little more “stream of consciousness” post this week. I’d intended to get more writing in but the weather was so lovely so I was working on my personal “carbon sequestration” project this weekend, also known as my garden! We’re converting our land to a food forest using permaculture methods, all natural and recycled materials.
