The Chinese artist who does couture with crap to denounce pollution

• The vindictive power of fashion
• Go fashion using recycled products

The mountain of garbage piles up in a corner of the sewing room. There are fishing nets, plastic bottles, used slippers , dirty fabrics and broken glass. In another corner, perforated bags of Ikea, wires with spikes, caps attached with colored ropes that form a kind of belt and several shoes with the sole made with clay pots. It is no landfill. It is the house of an urban artist who makes his own clothes with all kinds of objects that he finds on the street and in the sea.

This is a strange story. Of a strange type in the eyes of the rectitude and formality of the Chinese universe. He is a jarring note. A creative mind in a place where what is most valued is normality. Follow codes of conduct, do not attract attention and do not leave the parameters of life and way of thinking established by those above to maintain control.

If one asks Wan Yunfeng what he does, he will answer to dressing in a goddess wrapped in garbage. If one asks Wan Yunfeng why he does it, he will affirm that with his performances he intends to tell his people, that he breathes one of the most polluted airs in the world, that the environment is being charged and seriously damages his health and that of his descendants .

-Ecological fashion?

-I want to call on people to pay attention to the protection of the environment through ecological fashion, and make the land more and more beautiful. Some time ago I was shocked to see how many fish died in the sea due to polluting spills or entangled in garbage. I decided to make pants with fishing nets and plastic debris that I found on the beach to report what is happening. Since that time I have not stopped.

UNDERGROUND ICON

Then the 46-year-old man became a benchmark of fashion - neither conventional and alternative - in Beijing. And throughout China, where its popularity has come out of the ostracism of criticism and constant teasing on social networks for dressing up as a woman with plastic remains and has become an underground icon of environmental denunciation.

But, let us start at the beginning. For the kid who grew up in a city not far from the North Korean border called Fushun watching the plays of his father, Wan Lun, an errenzhuan actor, a type of Chinese opera that is performed as a duet in the northeast of the country. "From him I drew the artistic vein , " says Wan Yunfeng now. Although he remembers that at that time what most caught his attention were the bright-colored costumes that his father's stage companions wore while performing cabaret-style dances.

That fascinated him forever.

After a few years, the man who now dresses up with garbage first opted for acting as a theater actor and in short films. Then he became a makeup artist, one of the most sought-after, of those who accompanied the country's celebrities on tour. Until one day, with a bunch of colored sheets that his mother was going to throw away, it occurred to him that he could make a peculiar prop . That's how it started. Then came his mission in favor of a sustainable world.

"I want to convey the concept of environmental protection to the world by turning garbage into haute couture," explains Wan. “When I see lots of mixed wastes of all kinds that burn in landfills, turtles or seals trapped in nets, I get inspired to make a suit. Every piece I make is very difficult to wear ». And he adds: «I need several people to help me put on my creations. Many times I have cut myself because the plastics or other remains that I wear have some nail or wire. I feel that what I do is very striking. That is why it is valuable, it helps people pay attention to me and become aware of the protection of the planet, ”continues the artist.

Wan says it can take up to a month to make one of his suits. He has already posed with his creations in some of the main cradles of fashion in the world. In Paris, in front of the Louvre , he did it with a broken duvet cover that turned into a gala dress. In the Eiffel Tower he posed with a suit made of torn jeans and curtains. And in New York, in the middle of Times Square, he walked around with a garment made with Ikea bags.

His new project is a complaint to the pollution of the oceans.

«There are nine garments designed with garbage that I myself have collected from the sea. I almost drowned to get many wastes that I intended to use, ”he explains as he shows photographs of one of his last inns: climbed on a stone, surrounded by water,

Wan Yunfeng, dressed in a cape made with fishing nets and wearing a swimsuit made up of bottles, caps and plastic cups, looks anxiously at the camera, wanting to reconstruct the scene of a fish before dying from pollution.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• fashion
• Environment
• Climate change
• China

Global Nature "If there is no plastic in this area of ​​the Mediterranean it is not because it is not thrown away but by sea currents"

CienciaChina calls on the US to "greater responsibility" and not abandon the Paris Agreement

ScienceEU formally notifies the UN of its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate