Bart Hess is a well know name in fashion, art and design. For his latest project ‘Work with me People’ he needed the help of 10.000 visitors to help him develop new fabrics.
In his version of a sweatshop he invited the visitors of the Dutch Design Week to help him. Bart’s work unites fashion, textile, design, material, photography, video and animation. His projects look like nothing you’ve ever seen and the materials he develops look as if they came from another planet. Most of the time his work requires intensive manual labor to help transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, changing the materials of today into the skins of the future.
With his modern day version of his sweatshop he also wants to illustrate the conditions in which a lot of fashion products are produced. It’s his way to start the discussion about the dark side of the creative industry.
The ad for this project read: Wanted, 10,000 Enthusiastic Employees! Bart Hess is looking for some extra hands to help realize new designs. Are you a hardworking, obedient and good listener? Then this is the job for you! As a process operator you will be working under the supervision of Bart Hess and his team on the execution of several projects. Main task is producing according to the preset standards of quality and quantity. And working under safety regulations and procedures.
The two most impressive materials that where created, where the fabric made of latex drops and the fabric made of small needles.
The latex drops where to be dropped on stretched pieces of latex. Drop by drop the visitors planted the latex next to each other. The result is an amazing piece of material. When you remove the stretched latex from the tables and let it go back to its original form, it shows you a beautiful landscape of latex drops.
But the most impressive project must have been the needle fabric. This material had to be made with numerous of kilos (150kg+) of small needles that the visitors needed to pin into a big piece of fabric. The result was an unexpected soft hairy kind of fabric. Simply amazing!
All images © Bart Hess – Website
