Costing the Earth aims to highlight the harmful environmental impact of fast fashion and the small actions we can take to make a positive difference.

Costing the Earth presents the work of Mandy Barker, Alice Fox, Hannah Lamb and Atiyya Mirza and explores the different ways contemporary artists are responding to the climate crisis. Each of the featured artists works with recycled or sustainably sourced materials to create photographic, sculptural and textile artworks.

The cornerstone of Costing the Earth is Mandy Barker’s Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections. In this series, Barker pays homage to the work of pioneering botanist and photographer Anna Atkins (1799-1871) through her use of a Victorian photographic process. In these images, Barker hopes to raise awareness of the environmental impact of fast fashion and the harmful effects of microfibres released into the oceans from synthetic clothing.

In creating this series, Barker collected fragments of disregarded synthetic clothing on 121 beaches, from John o’ Groats to Land’s End, highlighting that no coastline is exempt from plastic pollution. The items found range from jackets to dressing-up outfits, football shirts to underwear, all salvaged from beaches, rockpools and directly from the sea. The items represent the millions of tonnes of clothes manufactured and then discarded each year.

Mandy Barker says, “It is my intention that conversation around Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections will lead to action and a shift within the fashion industry, with the aim of achieving an impact that will go on to change the world.”

Alice Fox looks at technical innovation while also revisiting ancient and indigenous technologies that could help to shape a more sustainable future. Fox’s artwork explores the idea of creating a safety net for the world, using different materials for net making, including repurposed polyester fabric and hand-twisted string from allotment grown plant fibres.

Great Women Chilling, a playful textile piece by Atiyya Mirza, explores womanhood, empowerment, independence and identity, and is inspired by the women in Mirza’s family. Mirza uses scrap fabrics she has collected over many years and found materials, exploring ways of working sustainably when creating artwork.

Fragments of a Dress by Hannah Lamb draws from the precious scraps of clothing associated with the Brontë family, especially Charlotte Brontë, in the Brontë Parsonage Museum collection. Lamb invited visitors to the museum to share stories about a significant item of clothing they treasure and leave a handwritten note about the item and what it means to them. These touching and highly personal responses have been carefully embroidered onto silk organza, overlapping and layering a mesh of memories.

Hannah Lamb says, “Textiles and clothing can hold powerful memories, reminding us of people, places and special moments in our lives. Today, despite living in a world of ‘fast fashion’ and disposable attitudes to clothing, many of us still keep hold of things that help us to remember.”

In Costing the Earth, the four artists have been invited to present existing work, reflecting the exhibition’s broader vision of encouraging reuse, repurposing, and recycling.

Curated by Jane Hiley, Costing the Earth is an Impressions Gallery offsite exhibition supported by South Square Centre. Part of Impressions’ Summer of Sustainability programme.

Image top: Conferva Tibia, Photographs of British Algae, Cyanotype Imperfections © Mandy Barker.