Common threads

A play-on of how threads come together to form a fabric, Threads of Connection is a movement founded by Marques Hardin in 2023. Working with West African artists to highlight textile pollution, Marques aims to support artists to create a more sustainable economy with their art: “Threads of Connection lends itself to the partnerships with corporations, artists, galleries,” explains Marques.

So far, Marques and the artists he works with have done two public exhibitions with Waste Management Europe – as well as a private exhibition in Marques’ home. They’ve also had two fundraisers so far, where they have been able to raise some money and are hoping to progress. “It’s been a very interesting process because it’s leading to something a little bit bigger that I’ve been thinking about and mulling over, because it could be a really big project.”

Is Marques interested in expanding to different communities in other countries? “No,” he replies. He wants to work specifically with West African artists because he believes Western Africa needs the most attention due to the amount of pollution that has been created from discarded textiles. “My hypothesis is that, if you throw money at the government of the countries to address those problems, it’s a failed strategy because it never works. I don’t understand why the International Monetary Fund continues to do that, what it leads me to believe they’re just not serious about the problem.”

Instead, Marques prefers to work with people that are for-profit. “The community has the skillset. Simple as that,” Marques states. To make a profit-driven type business is the only way that change can be made in the community. “If you have 92 million metric tons coming into the country on a yearly basis, there’s only what a group of artists can do to put a dent in that waste. Where my project is turning is, I want to make it a little bit more industrialised so that the problem can be addressed in a bigger way,” Marques explains. “The community,” he adds, “lives with it on a daily basis, so they have more incentive to make the correction. It’s terrible for the people, terrible for the immediate people who have to endure that because their infrastructure is not being built. Their infrastructure is not being invested in, their education system is not being invested in.”

By using these discarded fabrics, these artists are addressing the ecological issues through their art, inspired by their own lived experience and are, in turn, highlighting their resistance. “The resistance is the lack of resources. When artists are working with these types of materials, it’s readily available. It’s also affordable.” There’s also something significant about being able to use these discarded textiles from the Global North and turn them into thousands of dollars worth of art. “What it does, in turn, it helps the artists make a living and it also helps the artists to hire other people to help them gather the materials that they need to create their work. The money stretches in long ways and it helps many, many families.” However, Marques notes, “it’s still not big enough to create a dent.”

“Threads of Connection was a by-product of working with artist, Michael Gah, an artist from Ghana who works with second-hand textiles,” Marques says. The two met in 2022 and have been doing shows around Europe since. Michael has joined Marques visiting organisations in Germany and France to learn more about how to repurpose textiles and has been incorporating these practices in his work since.

Marques found that creative initiatives like art exhibitions and workshops increase environmental awareness by 60%, in comparison to traditional education campaigns. As repurposing textiles and plastics can reduce landfill usage by up to 30% in participating regions, Marques tells me, “We’re developing three artist residencies where we’ll go deeper into working those textiles and where we can bring in artists from around the world to work directly with the textiles that are in Ghana.”

Michael Gah was born and raised in Accra, southern Ghana and was surrounded by discarded textiles growing up. As an artist, he grew up painting. “It got to a stage where I wanted a voice. I wanted a material that could tell my story more. I’ve lived with textiles, I’ve experienced textiles, and I’m good at manipulating it to create artwork, so I switched from painting to textile,” Michael says. Growing up wearing second-hand clothing, Michael would often go to the second-hand market with his mother and saw the abundance of textiles.

Growing up close to the sea, he witnessed the waste himself. “Ghana has one of the biggest secondary markets in the world and 80% of it is waste. And then the waste ends up in the sea. Because we have linked gutters, it all leads to the sea,” he says. It led to him wanting to use this waste all around him in his art, hoping to give a message to his community. “I realised with my work, I think we need to change the mindset of people here. I go around, I educate people on how when they wear clothes and then dump, this is where it ends up.”

Ghana has five landfills that are becoming uncontrollable and Michael aspires to bring awareness, specifically to the youth. How does he do it? “I’m using colour, I’m using shapes, I’m using fonts to bring awareness for the youth in the environment,” explains Michael. Marques also highlights how community-based art projects have been shown to drive long-term changes in behaviour, with 70% of participants reporting sustained interest in eco-conscious living six months post-event.

“I was in Waste Management Europe in Italy a few months back and I learned how we can manage these things. So what we have here, we don’t source our trash. Everything goes into one being. So myself and Marques, we are trying to create micro-businesses where people would source their trash. Then it can be turned into something useful, chairs and boats for example. So that’s also in the pipeline that we are working towards.

“Anytime I talk to people about my work, I’m preaching sustainability,” Michael affirms. In some of his pieces, Michael intentionally keeps some of the brand labels so viewers are able to see a tiny label on the canvas. “This is where your product turns up. So if they over-produce, this is what the future is.”

He goes through some of the pieces with me that he has created with the discarded textiles and African prints: A cautionary piece, ‘Free Time’ is a canvas of three women with their feet in the water enjoying themselves with their drinks raised in the air. Behind them are large patchworks of discarded denim that people don’t want. “So, we are having fun now, but the trash is gradually getting closer to the city. It’s catching up to them. So when it comes to a year, we will not be able to have our free time again,” Michael explains.

‘Good Feeling’ shows two men on a boat, with one holding a lamp. “They are two of my friends in South Africa. Since I was in South Africa, I decided to use their own people to tell the story.”

Here, the light connects to the womb, presenting how mothers give birth to their children and hopes for them to shine.

“What will bring the mother joy is to see their children shine. So I connect that to the environment. What we all want is to see the environment looking beautiful and clean. So they’re on the boats, in the clean water, with some nice background. That’s what we all want to see.”

Another piece based in South Africa is ‘Keeping it Clean’. Michael explains, “again it’s three friends from South Africa. Anywhere they go, they just have fun. So I decided to use them to keep it clean, I love the bond between them.” In comparison to the other two, I noticed how this piece is much more muted and stripped back. “They bring the colours to life. Going to Cape Town, seeing the beauty, I was like, I’m not in West Africa! The city was so clean, and I wonder why we don’t do the same yet. It’s a way of telling our community that we can keep it clean as well.”

Ultimately, there’s this hope and intention in Michael’s art to inspire a better environmental future for his home country. Despite Michael’s art addressing the serious ecological issues in Ghana, I couldn’t help but point out that there is also an undeniable joy and a striking vibrancy that stands in each piece. Marques points out, “he touches on something that’s very important to people, which is fashion and style. The majority of people that buy his work are women, and bravo to that.’

“It’s all had to do with my upbringing,” begins Michael. Growing up with a single-parent and his aunt, Michael was mainly surrounded by women. “I would say I know much more about women than about men. I didn’t know how men move and all that, but with women, I know a lot about them.”

And the joy that is emphasised in his work? “My mom’s name is Rejoice,” he smiles. “I grew up seeing that joy on her face, and that was exactly how she brought us up, even though we don’t have much, the little we have, we turn it into something meaningful, something joyful.”

He explains further: “I go to the market, I see torn clothes. People don’t see beauty in that, but I see the little beauty in it and I bring it out. I join fabrics from Asia, from the United States and I bring them together. The fabrics don’t know each other. The designers don’t know each other, but I’m bringing them together. It creates a spark of joy. The figures don’t have faces, but behind them, there’s a smile on their face.”

When Michael says, “Sometimes I say I’m giving a second chance to this lifeless material, because they are dead. But I’m giving them life again on my canvas,” it perfectly encapsulates what Threads of Connection is aspiring to do. Their art acts as a catalyst for change, encouraging communities to reimagine and re-discover these materials in innovative ways, in the hope to improve their communities and economy while drawing attention to the serious issues within the textile industry.

See Michael’s works and other eco fine art pieces at: artgence.co