(Herivel & Wright). I will not discuss these issues here but instead try to frame the
work made at Merimetsa as it had the possibility of avoiding questions of penalty,
law, and the “vicious” image of its participants.
Our main concern was to strictly avoid a “mental” image of the project, an attitude
where the work would become highlighted as something of a “freak-show”. Instead
we wanted to highlight the transformation process of therapy work and how the
shallow values of fashion could empower participants on both sides of the counter
- producer as well as consumer. We wanted to blend these roles slightly, as consum-
ers could also become producers, and the producers at Merimetsa would be en-
gaged in the design process, as well as meet the demands of their interested cus-
tomers and perhaps even meet them through their small shop at the institution.
The first step in the projects at Merimetsa was the RE_TALLiation project, which
began in spring 2004. The one-month long collaborative work took place both at
Merimetsa and at a studio at the Estonian Artists Association. The first aim was to
add fashion value to the textiles sewn in the Merimetsa workshop through a col-
laborative design and production process between fashion designers and the cli-
ents. To make the model sustainable, the idea was to engage the local fashion acad-
emy in the project, so that the project could run in coming seasons even after the
initial experiment was finished. Thus all the resources were already at hand, but
just not yet connected or actualized. A local fashion academy, a rehab production
studio, a local fashion store – all were waiting for something to happen. Using the
academy’s repetitive curriculum for “powering” the cycle would create new designs
for the Merimetsa studio every year. An established and progressive local fashion
store in the city centre liked the idea and offered to sell the garments.
We got two design students interested in the project, Kriss Soonik and Liisi Ees-
maa, who created a garment model that could be altered throughout the produc-