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The grounds of the military hospital in Baggio are enclosed by high walls, with ubiquitous surveillance cameras carefully monitoring your every step. To enter this mysterious place at all, we had to hand over our passports at the gatehouse and confirm that we were part of the installation team. After walking roughly a hundred metres, passing soldiers in vehicles that, for reasons unknown to us, were constantly on the move, any sense that we were still in Milan had completely disappeared.

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The installation brought to Milan was created in the basement workshops of the Technology Center on Mikulandská Street. The final rehearsal of the exhibition was preceded by endless days of work involving the entire installation team.

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Several-metre-long steel tubes had to be cut and drilled to create a custom suspension system designed to run along three walls of the exhibition space. The centrepiece was to be a fully functional conveyor belt.

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The large structure first had to be assembled in Prague to prevent any potential structural flaws from being discovered only on site. At the last minute, for example, some of the details were still being dipped in liquid rubber to prevent them from rattling as much when in motion. The school’s Technology Center provided the perfect setting for this impressive installation.

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In mid-April, everything arrived safely in Italy. The first shift of our team was already waiting on site for the delivery from Prague, and spent the next four days doing nothing but assembling the installation. Milan was still quietly preparing for the busy week ahead.

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Among the items transported to Milan were precisely cut plexiglass forms, assembled into understated mannequins for displaying garments.

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Hot spring days in Milan, spent doing manual work and taking breaks for pizza and packs of cigarettes, flew by, and the grand opening was fast approaching. Throughout the grounds, exhibitions by designers from all over the world were taking shape at a rapid pace.

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The Wasted Waste installation was given a generous exhibition space in the former laundry of the military hospital. A space that seemed almost to call for a project working with textiles.

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The first pieces of the project began taking shape more than a year ago, as a semester project by the Studio of Fashion and Footwear Design. From a textile waste sorting facility in Broumov, the students of Simona Rybáková selected reusable pieces and refashioned them into a new collection.

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The concept aimed to explore possible ways of effectively and sustainably recycling textile waste, whether within the fashion industry or product design. These functional outcomes were then placed in the context of the Broumov region through raw audiovisual material created under the direction of Jiří Thýn from the Studio of Fine Arts IV, capturing the contrast between the region’s pristine natural landscape and the harsh environment of its industrial sorting facility. Once known for its garment industry, the region is now home to one of the largest textile waste sorting facilities in the Czech Republic, and the Wasted Waste project sought to draw attention to these tangible local consequences of the global problem of overproduction.

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Construction continued until the very last minute, and the first day of the exhibition was reserved for the press. The official press preview always takes place one day before the opening, and for the professional audience, it is the most important moment for making a strong first impression.

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This year’s UMPRUM project, however, had little to worry about when it came to making a good first impression. Editors and journalists enthusiastically left their business cards, and before long, accredited guests were strolling throughout Alcova wearing shirts that, until recently, had been destined for landfill.

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Perhaps the most surprising element of the installation, given its focus on textiles, was the back wall of the room. It featured functional objects by the Studio of Product Design, some of which were made directly from newly developed materials derived entirely from textiles.

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The centre of the room, however, was what drew visitors’ attention most. Along the conveyor belt, discarded pieces of clothing were continuously transported from a full cage to an empty one. This repetitive, all-day performance, which sparked children’s interest and invited them to take part in the playful activity, deliberately took on a dystopian quality for the adult audience.

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Meanwhile, the city of design was bursting at the seams, and we spent our evenings at opening parties for pop-up exhibitions, or, as is tradition, out on the street in front of the packed Bar Basso in the trendy Porta Venezia district.

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After a few days, our shifts changed and the second half of the installation team flew in from Prague to operate the moving installation for the remainder of the exhibition. We took turns looking after the exhibition, leaving all of us enough time, between good food, walks through the sun-drenched city, and inspiring conversations with people from the field, to visit the other exhibitions across the site.

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The deinstallation was carried out swiftly immediately after the final day of the exhibition, and we all returned to a somewhat cooler and much quieter Prague. Yet we brought back with us the energy of the fascinated visitors, the pulsing metropolis, and the magical gardens of the military hospital—and this autumn, we will experience it all again at Prague’s Designblok, the second stop for the Wasted Waste exhibition.

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Written for UMPRUM Online by Anna Grabherr (MUD)
Photography: Julie Petrůjová (VU IV)

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Exhibition concept: Simona Rybáková, Michal Froněk, Jiří Thýn
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Academic leadership, project collaboration: Vojtěch Novotný, Michaela Vrátníková, Václav Kopecký
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Exhibiting artists: Kryštof Bača, Matyáš Bálek, Šimon Bečvář, Laura Beretová, Olivia Dorušková, Anna Dunděrová, Alica Grebáčová, Markéta Hájková, Miloslav Chytil, Jiří Královec, Hana Kubrichtová, Natálie Krišťáková, Julie Petrůjová, Kateřina Puchmertlová, Vojtěch Smrž, David Stejskal, Filip Jurný Vojta, Šárka Zejdová
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Exhibition design: Miloslav Chytil, Jáchym Kubů, Mikuláš Procházka, Šimon Bečvář, Natálie Křišťáková
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Exhibition graphic design: Jan Stuchlík
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Photography: Julie Petrůjová, David Stejskal, Jiří Královec, Hana Kubrichtová
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Production: Michaela Kaplánková
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Expert collaboration: Zuzana Jirsová, Miroslava Slabá, Michaela Malinová, Anežka Svobodová, Rostislav Doleček, Michal Malášek

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Main project partners: Quix, Stěhování Podrazil
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Project partners: Alcova, Diakonie Broumov, social cooperative, Agents Model Management, Make-up Institute Prague, Broumov (City), Agency for the Development of the Broumov Region, Hobra Školník, Hradec Králové Region – realised with the support of the Hradec Králové Region

🅟
The installation brought to Milan was created in the basement workshops of the Technology Center on Mikulandská Street. The final rehearsal of the exhibition was preceded by endless days of work involving the entire installation team.

◻
The concept aimed to explore possible ways of effectively and sustainably recycling textile waste, whether within the fashion industry or product design. These functional outcomes were then placed in the context of the Broumov region through raw audiovisual material created under the direction of Jiří Thýn from the Studio of Fine Arts IV, capturing the contrast between the region’s pristine natural landscape and the harsh environment of its industrial sorting facility. Once known for its garment industry, the region is now home to one of the largest textile waste sorting facilities in the Czech Republic, and the Wasted Waste project sought to draw attention to these tangible local consequences of the global problem of overproduction.

◻
Meanwhile, the city of design was bursting at the seams, and we spent our evenings at opening parties for pop-up exhibitions, or, as is tradition, out on the street in front of the packed Bar Basso in the trendy Porta Venezia district.