The Earth is hurt and emptied.

It feels raped and shackled.

Its fossil fuels and resources have been taken and many of its stones, minerals and metals are gone.

Materials have been transformed into buildings and forests have become furniture.

Water is spoiled and food is spilled.

Fields lay waste and jungles have been untangled.

Coral reefs lay under attack.

Carbon emissions demand to be reduced.

And climate change is real.
 
We have taken it all and it is still not enough; turning materials into waste that we give back to the Earth as a poisonous by-product and as an unresolvable mass. This young century will bring about an opportunity for reflection and radical change, making up for a century of ecological abuse, overconsumption, greed and violence. For the first time, a post-fossil society is emerging, using natural ingredients, offering energy alternatives and giving us hope and faith in the future. Resetting attitudes towards more respect for the Earth and for one another.
 
Our entente with nature will be rewritten and reconceived; people will try to live together in a more harmonious way, consuming less and caring for each other. Giving up ownership. A more intimate and intuitive form of ecology will be the result, based on instinctive values, ancient rituals and archaic systems; rethinking primitivism, animism and fetishism alike.

Design, materials, textiles and fashion mine inspiration from our planet; revering its beauty and resilience, bringing its struggle to our attention and contemplating its organic elements in awe, like true Romantics. From land to sea, from forest to mountain, a wealth of ideas sprout from the Earth, analysing and cataloguing its components: transformed into textural materials, recycled remnants, oxidised alloys and vegetal colours; a movement redefining the tactile and emotional aspects of our life.
 
EARTH MATTERS is our chance to bring together designers and artists that are investigating new ways of producing ideas; innovative thinkers that are able to turn around our mentality, progressive people that develop a body of work that leads the way to another world in the making – creating a horizon of hope.
 
text: Lidewij Edelkoort & Philip Fimmano
 
EARTH MATTERS is on show at the Textielmuseum in Tilburg
from June 10 to November 26, 2017.

Purchase the catalogue (€20 + shipping)