Slow Fashion Lab Exhibition

The Slow Fashion Lab Exhibition will open on Wednesday, February 25, at the AHVA Gallery in the Audain Art Centre at UBC. You are warmly invited to attend the opening reception on Friday, February 27, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. 

This exhibition features material research and textile-based art pieces, created by members of the Slow Fashion Research Cluster and artists with practices addressing sustainability in textiles.

Artists and researchers in the exhibition: Dakota Burpee, Eden Eisses, Carl Stewart, Sol Skelton, Trav Fryer, Mackenzie Kelly-Frère, UBC BioProducts Baerfell/Feng Jiang lab, UBC BioProducts/Orlando Rojas lab, UBCO Materials & Manufacturing Research Institute/Farzan Gholamreza/Madysin Szypula, Blair Satterfield/HiLo Lab, Joseph Dahmen/Biogenic Architecture + AFJD Amber Frid Jimenez, Vaughan Woodward, Azmina Doctor, Emily Hermant, Raga Weaves, Kassandy Foundation, UBC Student Housing, UBC BioProducts/Marina Mehling/Kai Kirsch X Lorna Brown, plus additional research posters.

Slow Fashion Lab is an exhibition presented by the Slow Fashion: Circular Textiles, Sustainable Fibre Research Cluster as part of the annual Slow Fashion Season, hosted at the University of British Columbia. In the 2026 edition, the cluster bridges the gap between new textile and material research and its subsequent presentation on the runway. The idea of the Lab begins before you enter the gallery space—in the laboratories and studios of UBC cluster members and beyond the university. It decenters the focus on clothing, suggesting new possible futures within the textile and fashion industries. Material researchers are currently pioneering sustainable methods of manufacture for new, durable fibres and fabrics, yet much of it is little known by the wider public.

Perusing the materials on exhibit here, the viewer is invited to reflect on current research in this area, as well as the tonnes of textile waste that otherwise end up in landfills every year. By highlighting material research and fibre-based art created and conducted by artists, designers, and engineers within and beyond the Slow Fashion Cluster, the exhibition foregrounds new approaches to sustainability.