The Coats Worn at the Extinction Rebellion Protests in London Are Made From Fresh Seedling Grass
The Coats Worn at the Extinction Rebellion Protests in London Are Made From Fresh Seedling Grass
Just like they did late last year, the environmentalist organization Extinction Rebellion shut things down in London over the weekend. It was the tail end of fashion week and they staged a protest during Victoria Beckham’s Fall 2019 show, as reported by Vogue Culture Writer Bridget Read. Clare Farrell, one of Extinction Rebellion’s founding members, explained that the group was there to speak out against the wasteful and harmful actions of the fashion industry as a whole, explaining that it is “one of the most polluting on earth. It is using a vast quantity of the carbon budget that we have left to produce products that we don’t need.” Most of the protesters chanted loudly but were unassuming in their manner of dress, while others took a different approach. Several members of the Extinction Rebellion group wore what looked like fuzzy green coats that might have been mistaken for fake fur. Turns out, they were made entirely from freshly grown grass and crafted by two multidisciplinary artists named Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey.
As a whole, Ackroyd and Harvey’s body of work focuses on process and time, things like urban political ecologies, anthropogenic climate change, and environmental degradation. They first collaborated in 1990 when they grew the interior of a vaulted-ceiling room in Italy with seedling grass for a performance art work. Later, they returned to their native U.K. and, upon hearing about the Lynx anti-fur fashion show, decided to apply their technique to a wearable garment. This is how the grass coat was born, modeled after the silhouette of a traditional fur coat. Ackroyd and Harvey collaborated with Extinction Rebellion on freshly grown grass coats for the protest this weekend, after having joined the group and gotten involved in the local London actions last fall. “This is the first time we’ve shown the coats in London for nearly 30 years,” Harvey says. “Now with the advent of social media, which wasn’t available to us back in 1990, the platform of outreach is global.”
Each coat takes about two-and-a-half weeks to grow from seeds and then, patterns in the grass are achieved through natural photosynthesis which occurs over the course of around three weeks: Grass receiving less light produces less chlorophyll and softens the green pigment. Ackroyd and Harvey are loath to reveal too much about the process they’ve worked so many years to perfect. They’re “bespoke pieces, artworks,” designed to raise awareness around the larger issue of protecting our planet and being smart about the clothes we put on our backs each day. Says Ackroyd: “They can be commissioned and worn in a fresh state for an event, or they can be dried and framed. And of course, they’re 100 percent biodegradable!”
