Fashion Revolution

Today's programme features Roxy and Kids Arts Association

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 04.05.2021, 14:00

We’ve been friends with Roxy and
Kids Arts a few years back, and we’ve followed their collaborative arts
projects. Although the pandemic seems to have stopped time, Roxy and Kids Arts,
a project run by visual artists Roxana Ené and her son, Alexander,
together with Roxana Elena Petrescu, con-founder and vice-president of the Roxy
and Kids Arts Association, have had their hands full. Roxana Elena Petrescu
told us more.

We’re talking about the Fashion
Revolution Week campaign. Together with Alexander Ené, we were invited
to attend Fashion Revolution alongside other fashion designers and consumers
from Romania, as part of a campaign running in April. Fashion Revolution is a
global movement held in over 60 countries that started in response to a tragedy:
in Bangladesh, a building collapsed, killing thousands of fashion workers
inside. A lot of women died back then, over a thousand people, and that
generated a global movement saying ‘enough is enough’. We live in a world where
having has become more important than being. It doesn’t hurt asking who makes
these clothes, whether they are made responsibly, if materials are polluting or
not. Roxy and Kids Arts have been making efforts to adapt to a sustainable way
of life. Part of the things we do, outside manufacturing workshops, is to turn
old and second-hand clothes, especially stained clothes, into works of art, by reinterpreting
them in painting workshops.

In turn, Alexander Ené told us more.

It’s not enough to just turn materials into art. It’s really important
to educate people as well. For instance, Roxy and Kids Arts has been hosting
creative workshops for children, both in Germany as well as in Romania, using
fruit and vegetable leftovers, which usually end up in the garbage, as work
instruments. Sustainable living also means recycling and reusing as much as
possible, thus supporting the production of sustainable goods and cutting food
and material waste. Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle! The 4 Rs underlie the
concept of sustainable living.

Artist Roxana Ené has been monitoring how Roxy and Kids Arts revolution
is enjoying recognition at Fashion Revolution.

I was really impressed with the event. Everything worked out great, and
I wasn’t even there. I got a wonderful piece of news, that Fashion Revolution got
in contact with us and were interested in what we do. And it was perfect timing,
because we were just in the middle of turning clothing into canvasses. There’s
nothing extraordinary about it, if you come to think of it. You just take a bag,
a leather jacket, all sorts of clothing and you paint them. We didn’t hold out
much hope for 2021, but we were contacted by Fashion Revolution Romania.

Speaking about her team, Roxana Ené also expressed her excitement.

Things went very smoothly. My son, Roxana and I made a remarkable
performance, and presented a beautiful canvas, a bag we painted and a few pairs
of shoes. It was very beautiful. I’ve seen the pictures and I’m impressed!

We learned that Roxy and Kids Arts has a new prototype of reusable cotton
face masks, which can also be worn as a headdress accessory. Once she got to Germany,
Roxana Ené found out that canvas masks are now forbidden, and in Romania cotton
masks were already in production. Last year, in partnership with another
Romanian association working with teenagers with disabilities, Roxy and Kids
Arts started printing the works created in the workshops on cloth bags, made
100% from cotton, and they already have a large number of orders from Germany
and Israel.

The association’s activity has also been praised in Germany. Roxana Ené:

Here, in Germany, everything went slow last year. We
were supposed to implement the project ‘Reality 2020: the Mask’. It was a cool
project, children painted masks outdoors. We worked with 10 children and the
school was delighted with our project, that they decided to find a workaround
due to pandemic restrictions. So we submitted a handbook to school teachers and
they taught the Roxy and kids arts method in schools. Children ended up
painting oversized masks and the outcome was spectacular. The