Students upcycle industrial uniforms and fishing nets at MAC Niterói exhibition

Upcycling Challenge: caminhos sustentáveis para o futuro da moda opens at MAC Niterói Mezanino on 25 February, presenting student-made garments and wearable art fashioned from recycled energy-sector uniforms and fishing nets pulled from the ocean. The collaborative display, produced by duplas of students from Faculdade SENAI CETIQT and Belgium’s HELMo.Mode, runs through 4 March and frames technical training as hands-on climate action.

The show is on the MAC mezanino, Mirante da Boa Viagem, s/nº in Niterói, and will be open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00 with entry allowed until 17:30. Tickets are R$20 (inteira) and R$10 (meia-entrada), with free admission on Wednesdays; all sales are handled at the Bilheteria MAC Niterói and the box office accepts payment in cash only. Image material carried with the announcement is credited to Alex Ramos / Prefeitura de Niterói.

This is explicitly a Brazil‑Belgium student exchange: SENAI CETIQT paired classroom and workshop routines with HELMo.Mode’s fashion-design curriculum to produce a show that “o Upcycling Challenge, projeto desenvolvido em parceria entre alunos da Faculdade SENAI CETIQT e da HELMo, instituição belga de ensino superior em Design de Moda, transcende as fronteiras para afirmar a moda como linguagem de consciência e transformação.” In plain terms, the collaboration was built to integrate technical knowledge, creativity and socio‑environmental responsibility in student practice.

Materials anchor every piece: organizers write that “A mostra reúne peças exclusivas desenvolvidas a partir da reciclagem de uniformes profissionais do setor de energia e de redes de pesca retiradas dos oceanos,” and Heloisatolipan confirms the works were produced by student pairs. That means the raw inputs on display are not hypothetical eco-fabrics but the dense cotton and coated synthetics of industrial workwear and the coarse, tensile mesh of marine nets, materials that bring weathering, reflective tape and knotted textures into the vocabulary of silhouette and finish.

Placing the project inside the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói gives it architectural heft: Heloisatolipan notes the MAC is “um ícone da arquitetura moderna brasileira,” which the students use deliberately so their pieces read “não apenas como vestimentas, mas como narrativas visuais de reuso, identidade e inovação.” The result is a gallery of garments that look less like samples and more like field reports, patched, seamed and recontextualized to expose labor histories and material lifecycle.

SENAI CETIQT framed the exchange as part of its push toward international partnerships that reaffirm institutional commitments: the college aims to form “uma nova geração de profissionais que enxergam na moda um campo de transformação social, cultural e ambiental.” The Upcycling Challenge at MAC Mezanino, on view from 25 February to 4 March, is a compact, literal demonstration of that mission, students turning sector-specific waste into articulated lessons about circular design and responsibility in practice.