Mel Chin, American
Tracy Reese, American
Flint Fit, 2018
The plastic bottles water that flint residents are forced to drink due to their unsafe drinking water has become a piece of the community landscape. Mel Chin, an artist from Houston Texas, decided that these plastic water bottles shouldn’t create a new environmental hazard; they should go toward something beautiful. Chin worked with residents and community organizers in Flint to collect 90,000 empty plastic water bottles over six weeks. These bottles were converted into a yarn like fabric through a process where they are broken down, melted, turned into microchips and then became fabric. The actual designs were created by New York fashion designer and Michigan native Tracy Reese. Chin and Reese includes Flint’s manufacturing history within the work of art by using styles from the 1940s when General Motors factory was present in the town. This exhibition is also supposed to signify the resiliency of the people of Flint. Label by Isabel Schreur