Vanessa Mardirossian at ACFAS
May 10, 2022
Vanessa Maridossian led an online talk at the ACFAS Congres Conference on her research into alternative methods of dying and pattern making that use food waste and bacteria rather then petrochemicals.
This research-creation, led by a textile designer who has worked for 20 years in the field, responds to an urgent need to revalorize a highly polluting fashion industry, by offering an alternative to our dependence on petrochemical dyes. Aiming to develop local dyes, with a view to a circular economy, it is inspired by industrial ecology (where waste from a factory feeds a neighboring production chain) and biomimicry (which uses the operating modes of living as technology). This approach recycles food waste and uses bacteria to produce pigments. This project is an attempt to scale prototypes made in the laboratory and which were the subject of an exhibition at the École Supérieure de Mode de l'Uqam (2021), to allow the Montreal fashion ecosystem to test its potential. I carried out a mapping of local actors which highlighted the systemic and fruitful interactions that they could generate. I chose a panel of actors from fashion design, textile manufacturing, waste recovery, research and development, industry and university research in biotechnology. My story of intersectoral collaborations will talk about our exchanges, successes, limits and experiments in order to show the social implication of the designer's role. textile manufacturing, waste recovery, research and development, industry and university research in biotechnology.
My story of intersectoral collaborations will talk about our exchanges, successes, limits and experiments in order to show the social implication of the designer's role. textile manufacturing, waste recovery, research and development, industry and university research in biotechnology.
