We’ve been following this project on social media for a while now. Today we bought the shirt…

Part research method, part art object, The Shirt is a specifically designed consumer item,  manufactured in a Chinese factory, which uses bespoke digital technology to make visible all the people and processes behind its production. The Shirt has barcodes on it, and when you put your smartphone over the barcode, using a bespoke app, it will trigger digital content that reveals the very people and processes involved in making the actual shirt in your hands.

Buy your shirt here. £35 plus shipping… Find out more here.

It’s part of a much bigger project.

World Factory is an interdisciplinary performance project, exploring the relationship between China and the UK through the lens of the global textile industry.

Here’s the trailer.

It’s touring NOW! We can’t make it to take part. Can you?

[Metis Arts] are delighted to announce that [they] will be touring World Factory this Autumn across the UK. Our first show will be in Cambridge at The Junction from 18 – 21st October, followed by Brighton at The Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA) from 15 – 18th November and then at  Manchester HOME from 7 – 10th December.  We have also been holding university workshops, giving interactive lectures, including Rotterdam at Het Nieuwe Instituut, and a round table with an exciting array of economists and social scientists.

There’s much more on the Metis Arts website here. A fantastic scholar-activism project…