A Counterfeit Cooperative_Emily Chooi

PORTFOLIO a counterfeit cooperative operating in in a a textile textile glitch glitch operating E M I LY C H O O I ADS 2 2020/2021

INTRODUCTION TO PROJECT

SUMMARY

SITE

WORKSHOP

COUNTERFEIT FOR LIFE

COUNTERFEIT FOR AFTERLIFE

BRIEF//ABSTRACT//QUESTIONS

SUPPLY CHAIN//SCALES//GARMENT

HANDICRAFT VILLAGES//LOCATION//PLAN

MODES OF PRODUCTION// BEYOND PRODUCTION//STOOL

GARMENT//DELIVERY//DISTRIBUTION

GARMENT//DELIVERY//DISTRIBUTION

19-25

26-28

29-33

3-7

8-12

13-18

e mily c ho o i / pg 2

PORTFOLIO FILM (Instead of static portfolio) Containing research, drawings and animations in unity space)

ht tps://vimeo .com/557972703

e mily c ho o i / pg 3

With the advent of modernity arrived the ferocious imposition of thresholds regulating flows in our world system.

Out of the circulations triggered by transatlantic slavery, global capitalism coalesced into being. Cartography enabled the projection onto new territories of the desire for seamless transit, and the imagination of capital crystallised into logistical infrastructures. A line between land and sea was drawn; bodies born to be free were racialised as unfree labour; and nature coerced to the will of capital through infrastructure. As matter and geography were made to conform to circulations mapped and projected by capital, the violence of logistical determinacy extended well beyond the shoreline.

The unknowable and unpredictable spaces of indeterminate life – what Sylvia Winter described as the ‘demonic’ – endured the coercive impositions of measure, control, and logistical calculation. Held in a tense architecture of infrastructures, the flows that feed daily patterns of life and dictate architectural development continue to depend on cartographic systems that inscribe bodies and the earth with extractive logics whilst foreclosing other ways of being.

ADS 2 BRIEF Sp a c e s of Ind e te rminacy

ADS2 explores the world-making possibilities of cartography. Delving into the unpredictable realm of the demonic, the studio examines the tension that lies between spaces of indeterminacy and the logistical systems that traverse them. By deconstructing the infrastructures and technologies of logistical cartographic systems, ADS2 confronts the geo-racial-sexual violence of the worlds they imagine. The studio explores other cartographic knowledges stemming from embodied experiences of black life, non-linear conceptions of time, more-than-human perspectives, and indigenous subjectivities as the foundation for design interventions.

e mily c ho o i / pg 4

VOTIVE PAPERS// FAMILY RECORDING Testimonies from my mother and her siblings revealed the practice of burning paper items for their father when he passed. They believed he came to them in their dreams, sending messages of what items he would wish to receive.

The siblings dreamt their parents were cold with no shelter so burnt a two story house with all the associated furniture. They even burnt a car with a driver sitting inside as their father could not drive when he was alive. They burnt whatever their parents needed and subsequent dreams portrayed their parents being comfortable and happy in the same replica of home burnt. e mily c ho o i / pg 5

VOTIVE PAPERS// FAMILY RECORDING Every 4th April the siblings went to their parents graveyard to pay respects and send clothes and money to them. Burning incense invites their ancestors to receive the burning presents. An ongoing tradition throughout their lives as their ancestors still need these material items every year. After visiting it gave them solace in the comfort of knowing their parents are comfortable in the other life.

e mily c ho o i / pg 6

GARMENT INDUSTRY The export garment manufacturing industry is critical for many developing countries to work their way out of poverty. This project is placed within Vietnam, which holds one of the largest export garment manufacturing industries and is becoming more attractive to multinational companies due to cheaper labour and free trade agreements. daily uncompensated labour of women that enabled the development of capitalism. From factory to bodies, our clothes make journeys tens of thousands miles in the process of production.

The physical disconnect of dispersed management and labour perpetuates an emotive disconnect between those in charge and those employed. Someone somewhere bears the load of the whole system. These local-global tensions create logistical paradoxes that benefit consumers and captains of industry at the expense of labourer’s quality of life.

e mily c ho o i / pg 7

PRO JECT The spatial proposition lies within the slippery space between original and counterfeit, illegal and legal, consumer and the producer, life and afterlife. Departing from intense labour systems within the garment industry towards an infrastructure for everyday rituals of celebration fused with community cohesion. Reimagining the glitch of the ‘counterfeit’ interprets brands as a form of resistance to fracture the idea of exclusivity. Operating in an alternative logic of the handicraft village - where residents reclaim agency over their labour - yields a new supply chain with opportunity for other points of delivery and distribution. That reimagined supply chain necessitates a new workspace that goes beyond purely modes of production and centres on acts of care. We only see the counterfeit through the lens of exploitation. Exploring its counter logic directs empowerment to the maker, giving ownership back to those who construct it.

e mily c ho o i / pg 8

SCALE OF THE HANDS Beginning with the stratum of a single pair of hands - remaking the garment as a counterfeit leads to a large-scale logistical reconfiguration. What workshop space is the garment made in? How are materials and the finished product delivered, to who, and how is it distributed?

Reimagining the garment, the workshop, modes of delivery, and platforms of distribution.

e mily c ho o i / pg 9

2 KINDS OF COUNTERFEIT Within the intervention, there are two streams of counterfeit fashioned for different worlds. The counterfeit for life. A part of a line of counterfeits that get incorporated into existing chains of distribution. & the counterfeit for the afterlife. A ritualistic offering.

They both coexist as products crafted within workshops in handicraft villages as part of the new supply chain. Overlapping realms of life in the contemporary fashion industry and needs in the afterlife.

Scheme outline e mily c ho o i / pg 10

COUNTERFEIT FOR LIFE Acting as an unauthorised collection of western commodities, it emerges out of the mundane. Taking precedent from the fashion house collection of everyday capitalist chic with DHL and Ikea, this garment plays on the infamous Hermes Birkin bag.

Leaning on the multiple uses of the name Hermes between the fashion house, the delivery company and the God of trade and thieves, it repurposes fashion excess and used delivery packaging to craft a counterfeit copy of the Birkin bag. It uses the language of mimicry and the unauthorised in the glitch of the counterfeit to disrupt existing supply chains. Rather than a by-product of faceless factory figures, garments are given their own identity and rebuilt through creative modifications.

Concoctions become so departed from the original, it overcomes the definition of copy and the mutated variation assumes originals of their own.

Scheme outline e mily c ho o i / pg 11

COUNTERFEIT FOR AF TERLIFE The other counterfeit is an emblem, a ritualistic offering to connect with the dead and admired spirits. Within Vietnamese culture, the tradition is burning votive papers or hang ma to show respect to the dead. Acting as collective catharsis, the ritual ensures loved ones are cared for in the afterlife. The spiritual realm is seen to be equal to this life and is not free of materialistic goods. Many families create life after death, constructing imitations as votive offerings including modern houses, clothes, jewellery, bags and currency. The current industry burns large quantities of this paper emitting a cocktail of harmful substances because of the nature of printed ink and plastic. By reusing paper packaging and breaking it down into pulp form to then be fashioned into a crafted votive offering, it contests current levels of sustainability in this industry.

Scheme outline e mily c ho o i / pg 12

HANDICRAF T VILL AGE RESURGENCE Currently, within the cities, the pace of production is constrained by conditions of formality. Engineered around cheap labour, material availability and quotas to fill. Moving beyond these contingent restraints, this proposal operates in the handicraft village. Since the "Doi Moi" period in the 80s, craft villages have seen a resurgence due to market liberalisation. e mily c ho o i / pg 13

LOCATION OF COUNTERFEIT COOPERATIVE The proposed site of production is located amongst a cluster of three villages that specialise in sewing and are in the outskirts of Hanoi. Clusters of villages makeup craft co-operatives and are linked together along waterways transporting on boats between them.

Recouping labour practices via a deployable, smaller-scale operation allows garment workers to pursue these casual relationships.

Communities come together in the handicraft villages to perform ancient rituals celebrating ancestors, guardian spirits, or protective genies that helped them learn the craft. A community of care, they look after the dead who still need material things in the afterlife. Rituals and festivals are held after the lunar new year and revolve around the ceremony of burning the imitation or the fake. They are burnt as offerings and the deceased receive them via smoke.

e mily c ho o i / pg 14

COLLECTION OF TOOLS AND MATERIALS Work is divided up and each village fulfils a stage of the production.

Villages function as nodes within the supply chain, relying on one another for materials, skill, production space and workforce.

Belonging to the informal sector means employment is flexible and can easily adapt to market demands or conditions of production.

Aware they need to modernise to access new markets, the villages took ownership of equipment, buying and reclaiming them to continue production at home. They often use found or recycled materials as opposed to resourcing raw, which could be too difficult or expensive to obtain.

e mily c ho o i / pg 15

1 10 0 0 IN CONTEX T Redefining the boundaries of manufacturing emancipates the garment workers that are exploited as a colonial subject.

A platform to contest existing oppressive conditions, this project seeks to orchestrate a network connecting multiple dimensions and various scales.

e mily c ho o i / pg 16

1 10 0 IN CONTEX T ROOF ON Amongst the twists and turns of the river bed, we trace the edges of the site to approach one of many entrances of the workshop. A tectonic shift from constrained conditions of the factory settings to the freeing landscapes of craft. The skin of the workshop is left open to be malleable to the occupant. Vast structures billow over the cut out the ground. The ground that comes alive with the hands of creators.

e mily c ho o i / pg 17

WORKSHOP SPACE Life lived outside opens up possibilities for public cohesion. There has to be more to life than purely production. The workshop will be the backdrop to collaborate and socialise among makers - blurring boundaries between work, family time, and community. Rather than part of the human conveyor belt, space is shared allows for the sharing of lives. We see the workshop operating without the presence of bodies, trails of life hinted at.

The aesthetics are glitching into the other world as it is injected with celestial magic. Abstraction of boundaries as we flick between mortal and immortal worlds. A comment on the invisibility of labour, work is unseen, unnoticed, unacknowledged.

1 10 0 IN CONTEX T ROOF OFF OVERL APPING SPACES e mily c ho o i / pg 18

WORKSHOP SPACE The space vibrates from the rhythm of makers, the sporadic pulsing of crafting instead of the humdrum tones of producing. Breaking down the fibres of the harvested fashion waste and excess. Extracting the found materials as they are shaped and refined into recycled paper.

Grinding on the ground to emulsify it. A paste. Sieving to dilute in pools of water. A pulp. Rolling out the residual liquid. A sheet.

GRINDING INTO

PULP

e mily c ho o i / pg 19

WORKSHOP SPACE

STRAINING

SIEVING

e mily c ho o i / pg 20

WORKSHOP SPACE

WEIGHT OF THE

ROLLING

e mily c ho o i / pg 21

WORKSHOP SPACE

DRYING OUT

MOISTURE

e mily c ho o i / pg 22

DINING SPACE// SHARING OF FOOD

WORKSHOP SPACE

What is intended offers a retreat of production, infusing into the community rather than as separate entities. Large dining tables are animated with food shared in the middle except for the individual bowls of rice.

e mily c ho o i / pg 23

RESTING SPOTS BET WEEN PILL ARS

WORKSHOP SPACE

Rather than it being about quotas to fill, makers work to their own accord. During the rice harvest, workers abandon the workshops, even though their presence might be needed to complete orders.

e mily c ho o i / pg 24

WORKSHOP SPACE

STOOL Stools are assembled and congregate together, creating infinite boundaries to the workshop space. It plays with the idea of temporality and legality. Seating arrangements are never rigid to one spot. Rocking back and forth, inclined against the coolness of the pillar, grooves moulded to the shape of backs. The backs which were once leaned over to match the pace of machine-like productions, are now stretched back. These rockable stools act as the scattered props to cater to a temporary working environment.

e mily c ho o i / pg 25

COUNTERFEIT FOR LIFE The counterfeit for life, patchworks of leftover fabric and used packaging.

Our consumerist excess is repurposed with each design being different to the last. Collected fragments are woven with hands and abstracted into entire products.

e mily c ho o i / pg 26

COUNTERFEIT FOR LIFE

MODE OF DELIVERY// MOTORBIKE A low-tech container that facilitates the delivery of material and scraps from the city to villages, and in return counterfeits from the villages to the city. Transitioning through space, the container box shifts from storage, to the back of a motorcycle and to a final destination to be sold. The motorbike connects the contemporary counterfeit made in the villages to a wider system of the city and beyond. The box acts as a mode of delivery and display.

e mily c ho o i / pg 27

COUNTERFEIT FOR LIFE TECHNOLOGICAL PL ATFORM //WEBSITE As these villages are receptive to machines’ proliferation, the proposal uses a technological platform to widely distribute the counterfeit. In the form of a website, it will act as the interface between maker and consumer: the point of contact to access insights into the supply chain and inspect the feedback loop of suppliers and delivery times. It moves consumers beyond the immediacy of consumption to understand the experience of how the counterfeits are made and used. Worldbuilding through the digital space, featuring three-dimensional scans, live streaming videos of its craft and ceremonial rituals

e mily c ho o i / pg 28

COUNTERFEIT FOR AF TERLIFE GARMENT The counterfeit for the afterlife. A medley of broken down paper packaging and mutated into something of beauty. A gift for the ancestors who still require luxury amongst necessity.

e mily c ho o i / pg 29

COUNTERFEIT FOR AF TERLIFE DELIVERY MODE// FISHING BOAT By moving away from strictly productive relations and focusing on community, there can be more importance placed on care and lifestyle. Boats not only operate as the distribution mode between villages but line the waterways exchanging goods and dialogue. A culture of floating markets making use of the waterways as a way of transport but also as a means to do business.

e mily c ho o i / pg 3 0

COUNTERFEIT FOR AF TERLIFE DISTRIBUTION NODE//OVEN In the violent erasure of material offerings, we find solace and are relieved of ancestry guilt.

Votives are burnt as offerings in nõi hoá vàngs, ovens placed in the corner of compounds away from fumes. The deceased receive these paper material offerings via the smoke signals and evil spirits are warded off. It symbolises the spirit of replacing expensive offerings with paper alternative imitations.

e mily c ho o i / pg 31

COUNTERFEIT FOR AF TERLIFE

DISTRIBUTION NODE//OVEN Crafted as presents in the present and burnt as material offerings for the past.

Flames dance uncontrollably but contained in the oven, augmenting the gifts into another realm, the otherworldly. Its lack of infrastructure is personalised through the containment of families stories providing for the dead. The facets of the oven becoming singed with the remnant layers of the offerings.

e mily c ho o i / pg 3 2

COUNTERFEIT FOR AF TERLIFE

BURNING CEREMONY OF VOTIVE OFFERING

e mily c ho o i / pg 33

PRO JECT SUMMARY So in the glitch of the counterfeit, there is a reconfiguration of the supply chain. Supporting villages and garment workers to reclaim agency over their labour. It is an infrastructure to support already existing processes, allowing makers to come together and overlap aspects of all life. The intervention’s programmatic incompleteness allows for the unpredictable and leaves room for inhabitants to shape it. Acting as infinite nodes within a network allows for the continuous growth of other links and logistics. e mily c ho o i / pg 3 4

e mily c ho o i / pg 35