GLOBAL FASHION CAPITALS TRANSFORM INTO WASTE SITES Ilaria Marzano’s artwork Back To Square One confronts us with a bleak scenario: what if textile remnants from Accra, a city in Ghana where

the West dumps 15 million garments weekly, were instead deposited in our squares and streets? The response is embodied in Marzano’s fusion of TEXTILE MAPS and AI-GENERATED images, across

which the artist poses the stark impact of our actions — envisioning New York’s Washington Square, Paris’ Champs-Élysées, and Milan’s Piazza Duomo consumed by textile waste. These global

fashion capitals now bear the weight of the textile waste crisis and serve as a poignant reminder of the toxic power dynamics between waste producers and those grappling with it. Piazza del

within bales of 200 garments, each measuring 70x50cm. The physical manifestation of waste integrates with an AI-generated video, projecting dystopian scenarios that could unfold in the

midst of such circumstances. a large part of the Champs-Élysées would be covered with discarded clothes For this work, Ilaria Marzano drew from the dire situation in Accra. The Western

practice of discarding used or unwanted clothing, some of which finds its way to Accra’s thriving second-hand market, sets the stage for an unsettling paradox. Ghanaian merchants purchase

these bales, but the poor quality due to the influence of fast fashion, renders most unusable and unsellable. Much of the acquired clothing then becomes immediately unusable, sitting as a

burden for local populations tasked with managing this enormous waste, and little resources to do so efficiently. the whole Washington Square would be blanketed by the textile waste

generated in a month the map indicates the surface area of the Champs-Élysées occupied by textile waste envisioning global fashion capitals now bearing the weight of the textile waste crisis