02 — Material Has a History

When does a shoe become waste?

Every year, enormous quantities of sneakers are produced, worn and discarded.

When we receive a used sneaker in our studio, we don't only see material. We see an object that has travelled through a much larger system.

Someone extracted its raw materials. Someone designed it. Someone assembled it. Someone transported it. Someone sold it. Someone wore it.

And eventually, someone decided it had no value anymore.

For Patchwork System, we are working with researcher Mariana Pereira Silva to document these histories. Production dates and locations, traces of wear, previous owners and stories connected to individual shoes become part of a growing material archive.

We then physically deconstruct the sneakers. By taking them apart and rearranging their components, their original identities begin to disappear and new relationships between materials emerge.

A Nike can sit next to an adidas. A shoe produced in Vietnam can become connected to one produced in Indonesia. Materials that were individually considered waste become part of a collective surface.

What if materials could retain their histories, even as their function and value change?