What is Cut from the same cloth?
As a part the UK Festival organised by British Council Qatar (20-25 November 2023), Cut from the same cloth will promote textile recycling, exploring it as a metaphor for the power of reinvention.
Cut from the same cloth, will include a swap/installation/live event at M7 (Abdullah Bin Thani St, Msheireb). After the event, all clothes will be given away or mechanically recycled.
The project team will collect used clothes from our communities, use them as the basis of an installation for the live event, and interact with the public during the live event. After the event, the clothes will be donated, re-used or recycled as part of an exciting garment-to-garment recycling programme.
Please donate your used clothes!
All used garments welcome regardless of condition, just make sure they are clean! There are collection boxes at M7, the British Council, or Cló (Tawar mall) and/or please contact Teresa Albor for more information (WhatsApp +44 7889 55 8746 or alborteresa@hotmail.com). We can arrange pick up if you have a lot to donate!
Concept statement:
What does it mean to recycle something?
Recycling is a form of reinvention, of giving new life to something, or extending its life, of changing it to become a new version of what it was.
Cut from the same cloth is an exploration of these ideas. It is a conversation about recycling and reinvention, of the clothes we wear, and of ourselves.
One of the most efficient and human ways of recycling a garment is to give it to someone else who will wear it. In Qatar there is no better example than the bisht, a traditional men’s cloak that has been worn for thousands of years. The finest are made from camel's hair and goat wool. The bisht is sometimes handed down from father to son.
“I feel my bisht is an extension of me.”
Garments begin as textiles which, in turn, began as cotton from the fields, or wool from livestock or chemical compounds. These materials are spun into yarn or thread, then knit or woven into textiles. Old garments can be given away, re-fashioned, or used for a new purpose such as stuffing, or rags. They can also be shredded, turned back into fibre or plastic and then re-spun into ‘new’ yarn, closing the loop, making the process circular.
Our lives also have cycles.
Reinvention is a very human act. To change as we grow, sometimes to be unrecognisable in relation to our former selves, is part of what makes us human. It is a superpower.
“We start life as children, but most of us will become parents. We are students, but many of us will become teachers.”
Cut from the same cloth is a collaboration of students, designers, teachers, artists, thinkers who have come together to collect used clothes from the community, and to think about reinvention. We have made this installation as a provocation; all the garments will be donated, reused or mechanically recycled into ‘new’ textile after this live event.