The Sustainable Shop
13th October - 13th November 2011
70 Stamford Road, #B1-46 Li Ka Shing Library,
Singapore Management University
Exhibition opens on 13th October at 6.30pm
The Sustainable Shop
adopts the concept and form of a retail shop to provide a context for a
conversation about people, places, livelihood, sustainability and
enterprise, but is also more than a retail shop; it is an art exhibition using a popular word these days--sustainable.
The name for the shop and the exhibition is used deliberately to provoke the question—sustainable for what or for whom? The exhibition is, ultimately, a reflection of what the two words really mean, sustainable and development.
The exhibition adopts three Singapore Management University (SMU) community engagement/social enterprise projects to present the themes of sustainable development. The student-led-and-organised projects supported by SMU’s Office of Student Life are: an ecotourism project in Konleng Phe, a fishing village in Cambodia; an economic self-reliance enterprise for the urban poor in Jakarta, Indonesia; and a community paper-making cooperative in Sikkim, India, which creates Argali Paper.
The Sustainable Shop, as a retail shop, will be selling products such as bags and accessories made from recycled plastic collected by the trash pickers of Jakarta. In addition, artists and designers from Lasalle College of the Arts have been invited to create merchandise from recycled plastic, batik cloth and the Borong-Polok hand-made Argali Paper.
The name for the shop and the exhibition is used deliberately to provoke the question—sustainable for what or for whom? The exhibition is, ultimately, a reflection of what the two words really mean, sustainable and development.
The exhibition adopts three Singapore Management University (SMU) community engagement/social enterprise projects to present the themes of sustainable development. The student-led-and-organised projects supported by SMU’s Office of Student Life are: an ecotourism project in Konleng Phe, a fishing village in Cambodia; an economic self-reliance enterprise for the urban poor in Jakarta, Indonesia; and a community paper-making cooperative in Sikkim, India, which creates Argali Paper.
The Sustainable Shop, as a retail shop, will be selling products such as bags and accessories made from recycled plastic collected by the trash pickers of Jakarta. In addition, artists and designers from Lasalle College of the Arts have been invited to create merchandise from recycled plastic, batik cloth and the Borong-Polok hand-made Argali Paper.
Most of
the proceeds from the sale, and the design ideas if suitable, will be
channelled towards the three SMU projects for their on-going efforts at
building a sustainable social enterprise for the local communities. The Sustainable Shop marks SMU’s 10th anniversary and begins a
new chapter for its Community Engagement programmes, seeking questions
for the future ahead.