This talk, recorded on April 1, 2026, features Carole Frances Lung (they/them), artist, activist, scholar, and Professor of Fashion, Fiber, and Materials at California State University, Los Angeles. Lung’s interdisciplinary practice brings together textile labor, performance, social engagement, and critical research to examine the politics of production and the value of making.
In Taking Inventory: Frau Fiber’s Persistence Against the Global Apparel Industry, Lung reflects two decades of work created through their alter ego, Frau Fiber. Drawing from a multigenerational history of garment labor and their own experience working in the apparel industry, Lung traces projects including The Sewing Rebellion, public performances, participatory workshops, and the growing archive of the Institute for Labor Generosity Workers and Uniforms. The talk considers sewing, mending, and garment production as forms of embodied research and collective pedagogy while confronting fast fashion, labor displacement, overproduction, and the often-invisible human labor behind clothing.
Lung also discusses emerging work connecting the histories of textile and apparel production to contemporary questions of automation, artificial intelligence, labor, and environmental impact. The talk took place during Lung’s residency with the Unstable Design Lab, where they explored digital weaving and AdaCAD as tools for extending this research.
This lecture and residency were presented with support from the ATLAS Institute and the Department of Media Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder as part of the Unstable Design Lab’s Experimental Weaving Talk Series.