Swap-O-Rama-Rama

What is Swap-O-Rama-Rama?

“Swap-O-Rama-Rama is not your regular clothing swap. The event features an entire day of how-to workshops, on site thematic workstations and a gathering of skilled designers, artists and do-it-yourselfers brought together to share their knowledge.

Workshops are taught by local artists of all calibers and cover wide range of skill sets and material uses. The swap has offered technology based workshops including a demo by Mikey Sklar that demonstrated how to replace pockets with metallic fiber for the purpose of creating a wearable faraday cage to block RFID tag readers, and an exploration of a playable sonic fabric created from recycled cassette tape presented by Alyce Santoro. Swap workshops also introduce completely new textiles. Kate Sweater offered a how-to that transforms plastic grocery bags into a new textile for wallets, bags and shoes. Traditional crafts like embroidery, knitting, beading and appliqué can also be found. If guests want to be hands-on they can slide over to any number of do-it-yourself workstations. These include a sewing stations with several sewing machines run by knowledgeable clothing and costume designers; an iron-on station for downloading images off the web and transferring them directly onto clothing; silk screening, and decoration stations for working with beads, buttons, and a variety of accoutrements.

The core of the swap is the gigantic piles of free clothing sorted into categories: pants, shirts, skirts, sweaters etc. These piles are the collective total of each guest’s contribution of one bag of unwanted clothes. This contribution is required to attend the event. Once inside guests are encouraged to take home ‘as much clothing as you can carry.’... All left over clothing is donated to St. Martin DePorres Shelter in Brooklyn, New York.

Swap-O-Rama-Rama was created out of a recognition that consumerism needs to be unlearned.”

The next Swap-O-Rama-Rama is on Sunday, Feburary 12 at Galapagos in Williamsburg.

The associated performance art, fashion show, and venue position it in a rather white, hipster way — more thrift-store chic than alternative economy. But it sounds like some grassroots, DIY fun. Find out more at http://www.swaporamarama.org

Also of note, “Swap-O-Rama-Rama has received funding support from Black Rock Arts, a community resource for interactive arts that sprouted from the makers of the art festival and utopian experiment Burning Man.” Let 1,000 DIY art-happenings bloom!

Update: Because of snow, Swap-O-Rama-Rama has been rescheduled Monday (Presidents Day) February 20th 2pm to 7pm.