Wong
Work
Culture Jamming
Year: 2020
About culture jamming
Cultural jamming refers to a form of culture backlash on mismatched messages and company operations. Artists reimagine the same idea or concept of an advertisement to promote contradicting company actions. The execution can be vastly different, from quick vandalism to sophisticated recreation.
As consumer culture changes quickly, culture jamming also reacts and follows quickly in hope to create a stir in society. And jamming can be localised as different cultures react to the same ideology and concept differently. This also offers a window to the cultures of the world.
With culture jamming, young artists are able to express themselves and gain a sense of confidence with the belief that they are able to influence and control culture.
On the notion of societal impact, cultural jamming helps to identify weaknesses of capitalism and demonstrates the ability of the general public to influence culture.
The Concept
Being reported to have negative environmental impact during manufacturing, H&M aims to become 100% “climate positive” by 2040 with renewable energy and increased energy efficiency. The company also pledges to use 100% recycled or sustainable materials by 2030.
Despite the vision of having circular and renewable fashion while being a fair and equal company, the company did not keep its promise for 850,000 garment workers to earn a living wage by 2018. The company has also been consecutively found breaching cultural sensitivity issues on race, aboriginal cultures and waste generation. This marked the company with negative environmental and political sustainability.
Therefore, the first cultural jamming product for H&M will be a magazine spread to raise awareness on the garment waste that is caused by fast fashion, previously led by H&M.
Fast fashion has negatively influenced our existing waste problem with the average American disposing of 70 pounds of textile every year which makes up 5 percent of average landfill. And the New York Times has discovered an H&M store in Manhattan was slashing what appeared to be never-worn clothing and simply throwing it out.
With the group vision of being 100% “climate positive” by 2040, the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency seemed to be greenwashing the waste and pollution problem that the company is bringing.
The design of the advertisement looks to reveal the group’s intention with polished campaigns, such as “H&M Conscious”, to cover their environmental neglecting. The “mountain” of waste clothing contrasts the green hills to bring more “shock” to the viewers and hopefully induce a reflection of the company.
The second cultural jamming product is a subway billboard reimagined from a previous H&M Conscious advertisement. H&M Conscious have two main “sustainability” aims which are the Conscious collection of clothing and the clothing recycling service for old clothes from any brands to be recycled.
By changing the “don’t” to “we” to reveal the truth behind the marketing of the H&M Conscious collection. According to the Deputy Director or Norway’s Consumer Authority - Bente Øverli, the brand was “not being clear or specific enough in explaining how the clothes in the Conscious collection are more “sustainable” than other products they sell.”
Meanwhile, in 2017, the Vasteras power plant in Sweden announced to be going fossil fuel free, partly because they had been contracted by H&M to burn their defective clothing. By November 2017, the plant had already incinerated 15 tons of discarded clothes from H&M.
The final culture jamming product is a storefront advertisement that look to demonstrate the salary of their workers with a similar technique that they used to highlight the price of their clothes.
H&M has been found to underpay the workers while requiring them to overwork. The average take-home pay of H&M factory workers is US$187.97 a month. However, the workers estimated they needed $230 a month to live with dignity.
The company was also found mentally and physically abuse the workers. The 2013 Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh highlighted the terrible conditions in the industry. The tragedy has caused 1300 deaths. And H&M was one of the brands manufactured there.