Memory Relay Organic Cotton Sweatshirt — French Navy

Memory Relay — Study 03

Cultures at Risk Collection

About the garment

A considered heavyweight layer built from certified organic cotton for everyday wear across seasons.

Constructed using 100% organic combed ring-spun cotton, the fabric carries a substantial 350 g/m² weight—providing warmth, durability and a structured drape while maintaining breathability. The brushed interior offers a soft hand feel, while the outer surface remains clean, dense and refined.

Designed with restraint, the garment prioritises longevity, comfort and everyday versatility.

Design & concept

Memory Relay explores how cultural knowledge remains active by moving between people.

Across many place-based cultures, knowledge is not preserved through written records alone. It is carried through storytelling, observation, demonstration, correction, shared work and repeated participation.

Ways of reading a landscape, preparing material, naming plants, understanding seasonal change or maintaining a practical skill may be learned through close relationships between people and place.

One person demonstrates.

Another observes.

The action is repeated, adapted and eventually carried forward by someone new.

This process forms a living relay in which memory remains active through use rather than existing only as stored information.

When generations have fewer opportunities to speak, work or practise together, this relay can become more difficult to maintain. Migration, changing livelihoods, language loss, ecological disruption and reduced access to shared places may gradually weaken the conditions through which knowledge is exchanged.

The artwork translates this process into four repeated relay structures.

Each structure moves through three stages:

• the upper single indicator represents knowledge held by one carrier
• the paired central indicators mark a moment of exchange
• the lower single indicator represents knowledge carried forward independently
• repetition across four units suggests continuity sustained through multiple acts of transmission
• open intervals show that knowledge does not pass automatically—it depends on renewed participation

The composition does not present memory as a fixed archive.

Instead, it represents memory as movement: held, shared, received and passed onward.

The complete four-part Memory Relay composition extends across the upper back. A reduced pair of relay structures appears at the chest, functioning as a quiet fragment of the larger system rather than a separate symbol.

Rendered in Stone White against the French Navy base, both applications remain precise and restrained—visible through close observation without becoming visually dominant.

System Insight

MEMORY RELAY
Intergenerational Memory — Knowledge Relay System

A minimal system exploring how cultural knowledge remains active through repeated human exchange.

Memory is not carried by one person indefinitely.

It moves through relationships.

Observation enables learning.
Participation creates understanding.
Repetition strengthens memory.
Transmission allows continuity.

When opportunities for shared practice begin to narrow, knowledge may remain remembered but become less frequently used, demonstrated or passed forward.

This artwork translates transmission into a repeated sequence of individual and paired signals.

The single mark represents a carrier.
The paired marks represent exchange.
The returning single mark represents continuation.
Repetition suggests memory moving beyond one generation.

The composition is not a representation of any particular community, teaching practice or cultural tradition. It is a research-led interpretation of how knowledge survives through relationships between people, place and repeated experience.

An observation of memory in motion—received, carried and passed forward.

Design & fit

Cut in a regular unisex fit, the silhouette remains structured yet non-restrictive.

• Regular unisex fit
• Set-in sleeves
• Crew neck
• 1×1 rib collar, cuffs and hem
• Double-needle topstitch at collar, sleeves and hem

A reduced two-part Memory Relay signal appears at the chest, while the complete four-part composition extends across the upper back.

Both applications are rendered in Stone White, maintaining a precise and restrained presence against the French Navy base.

Material & construction

• 100% organic combed ring-spun cotton
• Fabric weight: 350 g/m² / 10.3 oz/yd²
• Soft brushed interior
• Dense, smooth outer surface
• Inside herringbone back-neck tape
• Self-fabric half-moon at the back neck
• Organic cotton certified under GOTS and OCS standards at fabric level, via the supplier
• Fabric tested under OEKO-TEX Standard 100
• PETA-Approved Vegan

Fit note

EU sizing.

US customers may prefer ordering one size up for a more relaxed fit.

Care & longevity

• Wash cold
• Turn inside out before washing
• Wash with similar colours
• Avoid tumble drying
• Do not iron directly on the artwork

Designed to be worn often and kept over time.

Production note

This product is made on demand.

Producing only what is ordered helps reduce excess inventory and unnecessary overproduction.

Collection note

Part of Cultures at Risk — When Nature Fades, a research-led visual archive examining how environmental change and shifting ways of life can weaken the conditions through which cultural knowledge is practised, remembered and passed between generations.

Memory Relay is presented as an informed, non-literal interpretation rather than documentation of a particular culture, community or form of teaching.