The fashion academic HUB, a node of teachers working in training and education for the industry, organized an activity to “create pieces that dress the body” at the demonstration. It will be done in the National Park this Sunday, May 23.
The national strike completes 25 days this Saturday. What began as a rejection of the tax reform project became a social outbreak motivated by the effects of the pandemic, unemployment, poverty and various decisions of the government of President Iván Duque. Demonstrators and users of social networks that support the strike have used their platforms to unite, show what has happened in Colombia and ask again and again relevant actors, singers and characters of the fashion industry to comment on the situation that the country lives. But many of the designers, especially those who claim to champion the pride of being Colombian and who work with artisans and indigenous people in their collections, have kept silent.
However, there is another group of brands and businesses that have raised their voices and rejected the violence, police abuses, blockades and other violent acts committed since April 28. In addition, fashion academics and professors, gathered in a Hub, decided to publish a manifesto and carry out a creative activity this Sunday, May 23, in the National Park, in Bogotá.
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How are people dressing for the marches? Represents? What do the clothes say about the protests? Those were some of the questions that were asked and that they hope to answer through visual, auditory and creative activities.
“Given the situation in the country and after 2020 with few activities and proposals, the question arises: What do we have to say at this juncture? So, academics and other people dedicated to teaching fashion made the strategic decision to open the Hub and activate ourselves in the face of the national strike, ”says Carolina Agudelo, professor and coordinator of the area of textile and fashion media at the University’s Design Department. of the Andes.
The position is a clear support for the demonstrations and the students. “We academics and teachers owe ourselves to them and it is cruel and hard to see what they are having to face in the streets and in their homes, where there are discussions and family situations that are complicated for them.”
The activity on Sunday is a creative action because, according to the group, the way of manifesting itself from fashion and academia is from creation. It is a type of exhibition, elaboration and meeting in order to make pieces for the body in the demonstration. In the event, which will be held in the Clock Tower of the National Park, from 10:00 am, proposals, activities and photographic records in this regard will be presented.
Follow the news of El Espectador on Google NewsPeople will also be able to participate from their homes, as the pieces will be shared on the HUB’s Instagram account.
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Agudelo adds that the academy has been the place where revolutions and resistance have been forged. “If we do not demonstrate in front of what is happening, who else? The academy has a duty to demonstrate and take sides. That is important”.
The teacher also states that, although most academic networks remain on the sidelines, they decided to establish a position and think from the academy on what fashion should be saying about the situation that is being lived. “The people who signed it agree with what is happening at the moment. We know that there is a series of discontent and there is a huge crisis that comes from many situations and long ago and that exploded because of the pandemic ”, he adds.
With the slogans “Fashion takes care of life” and “Fashion is citizenship”, the academics want to show that the industry can take a position regarding what happens in the country, since they consider that taking care of life and learning to be citizens It allows us to understand the place from where we are like this and to be able to build a country ”.
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On May 13, the Hub published a manifesto, after several meetings after which they made the decision to demonstrate and establish a position and opinion from the academy. “Dedicated to education and research for fashion in Colombia, we understand the responsibility we have in building understanding about the care of life as the end of fashion in times of violence. The academy goes further, and touches sensitive points of the individual: values, thoughts and expressions of the interior ”, he says in a part of the text.
“We understand the complexities of this ecosystem that depends on all its species in balance for its continuity and sustainability in the future. We take a stand for the protection of life, for the end of violence, for the care of people, territories and everything that confirms them, through dignified conditions that allow their well-being ”, also express the academics, who assure be advocating a social and political role for fashion, which takes the industry beyond economic exchanges, “but where prosperity in peace is based on social justice, so necessary but so scarce in a country like ours” .
The node says that it is not only about covering a body, but about understanding it in the social group that inhabits, protects or violates it.
