02 Jul 2025
Still Here / Todavía Aquí
Opening event Saturday 5th July 11-1pm morning tea all welcome.
During an artist residency in northern Chile, Auckland-based artist Milvia Romici visited one of the largest fast-fashion waste sites in the Atacama Desert. Among mountains of discarded clothing, some still bearing tags, the overwhelming scale of abandonment struck her. Much of this waste will never break down. Synthetic fibers leach toxins into the soil and air, endangering local communities.
This exhibition combines fabric fragments mostly denim and fast fashion remnants salvaged from the desert and sewn by hand. Working closely with local artists and residents, Romici recorded reflections on what it means to live alongside this material saturation. Their voices are part of the installation, including prints, sculpture and video to reflect about the sticky, enduring bonds between waste and place, industry and ecological consequence.
Waste doesn’t disappear it clings, seeps, settles. But within these remnants lies the possibility of attention, connection, and change. This is a tactile archive not only of grief and complicity but of care, resilience, and a form of quiet resistance against forgetting,
against disposability.
This exhibition combines fabric fragments mostly denim and fast fashion remnants salvaged from the desert and sewn by hand. Working closely with local artists and residents, Romici recorded reflections on what it means to live alongside this material saturation. Their voices are part of the installation, including prints, sculpture and video to reflect about the sticky, enduring bonds between waste and place, industry and ecological consequence.
Waste doesn’t disappear it clings, seeps, settles. But within these remnants lies the possibility of attention, connection, and change. This is a tactile archive not only of grief and complicity but of care, resilience, and a form of quiet resistance against forgetting,
against disposability.