Frau Fiber’s K.O. Enterprises: Roadmap to a Living Wage

Last Saturday, visitors to the Craft in America Center encountered a small-scale garment production shop in the Center’s front window. Frau Fiber set up her hand-crank sewing machine and created knock-off H&M garments for five hours in a performance titled K.O. Enterprises: Roadmap to a Living Wage. An embroidered banner provided a backdrop for Frau Fiber’s performance, mapping H&M’s worldwide labor practices and announcing the reality behind American garment consumption. As passersby noticed the performance, they had an opportunity to ask Frau Fiber questions and get a close-up look at this hand-made approach to making clothes. Discussions engaged current practices in the fashion industry and the power of consumer choice to effect positive change. Take a look at this gallery to see images from the day’s performance:

Frau Fiber getting started in the Center Window

Frau Fiber is reflected as she hand-cranks knock off H&M garments

Frau’s handiwork is observed by a passerby on West Third Street.

Two pedestrians stop to see Frau work, and come inside for a conversation.

Frau Fiber folds one of her finished knock offs in front of her banner.

Carole Frances Lung is an artist, activist, and scholar living in Long Beach, CA. Through her alter ego Frau Fiber, Lung creates performances that fuse activism and cultural criticism with spirited crafting. She investigates the human cost of mass production and consumption, addressing issues of value and time through the thoroughly hand-made construction and salvaging of garments. Lung is an Assistant Professor of Fashion at California State University Los Angeles. www.carolefranceslung.org

Carole Frances Lung’s work is currently on view in Craft in America’s current exhibition California Handmade: State of the Arts at the Maloof Foundation in Alta Loma, CA.