Asturias, Spain: Tuning into the struggles of a post-industrial region #7 Pascale Gatzen

Pascale Gatzen fell in love with fashion as a child, became a designer and quickly fell out of love with the competitive, capitalistic fashion system. In New York she co-founded the workers cooperative Friends of Light that fabricated custom made woven jackets from local wool. This experience evolved into the Dutch ‘Linen Project’ an – also – cooperative attempt to create a value chain from growing organic flax to making linen products with the harvested and processed fibres. 

Collaboration comes with communication. Gatzen got interested in ‘empathic communication’ and made that the core of an artistic Master she set up in Arnhem, The Netherlands. 

A conversation about getting in touch with felt emotions and underlyning needs, ‘should thoughts’, the succesful Mondragon cooperative and the love for making beautiful things that will never fade.  

References:

The Linen Project
https://thelinenproject.online/
Friends of Light weaving cooperative:
https://www.friendsoflight.net/
Nice read: Take back Fashion! by Pascale Gatzen for Apria/ArteZ:
https://apria.artez.nl/take-back-fashion/
About non-violent communication (what Pascale calls ‘compassionate communication’):
https://www.cnvc.org/learn-nvc/what-is-nvc
About the Mondragon worker cooperative:
https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/about-us/