The IOU Project
May 17, 2011 Leave a commentI’m keen on redefining my relationship with “stuff.” I think it is an essential aspect of truly being in movement. Consumerism is at the heart of the challenges we face as a humanity. When was the last time you watched “The Story of Stuff?”
I have no intention of becoming a monk, so as long I have to buy some stuff, why not be as conscious as I can about it? A BIG reason why I like this IOU Project.
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These folks seem like Luddites. It’s not efficient to make clothes by hand; nor is it liberating to the workers. Would you really want to weave mediocre clothes for a living? Hand weaving clothing for yourself in order to get it just right is understandable, but doing it over and over for anonymous customers is a social problem to be alleviated.
Dear Christine, that is what they say about bread as well and so lets make all the bread in factories and alleviate bakers and loose the art of bread making, i could go on and on with many examples of hand made things. Hand made fabicis is beautiful and each artisan makes what he wants , uses the coloures he likes and expresses his creativity as opposed to pushing a button repetitively on a machine and loosing his art
My problem is with those from poor countries doing the menial tasks. No, it’s not as bad as working in a factory, but it’s still repetitive work. The weavers don’t design the product, the European Artisans do. So how are the weavers expressing their creativity. They’re just following a predetermined blueprint. As for the creativity of the artisans, have you seen the products? It’s all plaid. The patterns are slightly different. I wouldn’t call that creative. I am a huge believer in humanistic workplaces where everyone has the opportunity to reach self-actualization; I just don’t see that here. This is nowhere near my image of Utopia. I’d rather see a workplace where the workers are teaching each other how to do each task and everyone participates in each aspect of the production process. The creative design work shouldn’t be dominated by the privileged few. Accordingly, everyone should do their share of the tedious work.
Furthermore, I’d like to see a project that takes farmers, factory workers, and weavers from developing nations and teaches them business, design, and engineering, so that they will then have the skills to push their countries up the labor pyramid. It’s just not fair for someone to have a 95 percent probability of living a life of menial labor simply because of the country they were born into.
hopefull, you’ve expressed your support of art and creativity. I share this attitude. At core, I really think we’re on the same page.