Flow Upstream: Together against waste colonialism!

Martin Wöllenstein, a student in the Master's programme Transversal Design at HGK Basel, will present the Flow Upstream project, which addresses the neo-colonial export of textile waste, at CIVIC at HGK Basel from 8 to 12 December 2025.

Martin Wöllenstein, a student in the Master's programme in Transversal Design at the Institute for Experimental Design and Media Cultures (IXDM) at HGK Basel, will present the project ‘Flow Upstream’, which is part of his Master's thesis, at CIVIC at HGK Basel from 8 to 12 December 2025.

Flow Upstream is a long-term collaborative research project which deals with global influences and collisions between Basel and Takoradi (Ghana). This connection involves the Basel Mission’s past colonial activity in Ghana, the present-day neocolonial export of textile waste from Europe to West Africa and both cities contemporary Carnival traditions.

As part of the presentation at CIVIC at HGK Basel, a hybrid meeting on fast fashion policy will take place on Tuesday, 9 December 2025, from 5 to 8 p.m. under the title ‘Common Affairs’: Together against waste colonialism!

The issue: The global production of fast fashion keeps increasing despite large media coverage and frequent calls for change over the past years. Simultaneously, increasing amounts of textile waste are flooding Ghana and other places of the Global South. ‘Waste colonialism’ has become a massive threat to people and the environment.

The hybrid assembly brings together people from all parts of the fashion system. Set as a conversation between Ghana and Switzerland, the assembly especially gives voice to Ghanaian activists and organisations who are fighting the impacts of the fashion waste crisis every day.We will discuss what strategies are useful to tackle the causes and consequences of the crisis depending on the different places and positions one finds oneself in. The aim is to exchange, to inform and to connect for creating new alliances across borders.

Why Basel? – The city of Base has a special significance for this issue. In 1989 the Basel Convention was signed here. It is the most important international treaty designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations. The Basel Convention has only included textiles since May 2025.

‘Common Affairs’ builds on the Basel Convention’s legacy while insisting to improve international regulations that decolonize the fashion industry and environmental politics.At the assembly delegates from the corresponding UN Secretariat will be present will be part of the discussions.