Down (Exhibition Sketch, 2020 Taiwan Biennial)

Last crawled date: 10 months, 1 week ago

https://www.shengwenlo.com/down While shopping for winter jackets, I realised that it is impossible for me to tell where exactly the feathers of mass-produced down jackets came from 1]. Therefore, I attempted making my own down jacket in a relatively harmless way: by manually collecting the goose feathers on the grounds in the parks 2], riverbanks, and forests near my house in Breda, the Netherlands. After two months of collecting 3], cleaning, filling and sewing, the jacket was put to test in the High Arctic (Spitsbergen archipelago) for three weeks to see if I can survive 4]. During this sailing expedition of The Arctic Circle Residency 5], I made 21 landings and glacier hikes between 78°17'N-80°02'N, wearing only this jacket and minimum base layers. A guide booklet “A Step by Step Guide for Making Your Own Down Jacket” was designed based on my experiences to allow everyone to make a down jacket from where they live.