Uncomfortable quilts: textile-based artivism in response to Bangladeshi garment factory disasters

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recently, two deadly garment factory disasters in Dhaka, Bangladesh – the 2012 Tazreen Fashions factory fire (117 killed; over 200 injured) and the 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza, an eight story complex including garment factories (1,135 killed, over 2,500 injured) – inspired a series of artworks addressing globalisation, gendered labour exploitation, memorialisation, and the power of empathy. This essay explores the work of four visual artists: Robin Berson, Taslima Akhter, Reetu Sattar, and Dilara Begum Jolly. Each engages in physically and/or emotionally challenging creative processes, including enactments of repetitive garment labour, weaving the names and faces of deceased workers into textiles, and displaying personal effects such as family photographs salvaged from the ruins of the destroyed factories. In this way, the artists call attention to the human cost of so-called ‘fast fashion’ and agitate for moral responsibility in the face of these disasters. More universally, this essay offers examples of how visual art can expose the causal dimensions of structural violence and socio-economic power imbalances while also memorialising, expressing solidarity, and aiding with community healing.