A heavy, heavy duty is a textile fiction by Stefanie Knobel and Angela Wittwer. It offers speculative perspectives on the history of the cotton trade from the early 19th century to the present, linking this history to the omnipresence of synthetic fabrics and chemical substances. Set within a fantastical science fiction landscape, threads are woven together, intertwining the embodiments of colonial power and exploitation and the resistance of the more-than-human: the affects and potentialities of that which transcends human existence. A future timeline allows the past to resonate with the present and creates space for a actualization of Switzerland's colonial entanglements within the broader framework of an extensive textile history.

The work examines the interactions between geographies with cotton history: India, Indonesia, Iran, and Switzerland. Since 2016, the artists have staged these interactions at site-specific locations in the canton of Zurich, which are intertwined with the colonial trade in cotton. With each exhibition or event, the work is enriched with the (cotton) stories of the new location. So far, the work has been shown in Zurich in 2016 and in Wetzikon in 2023; a happening took place in Uster in 2016.

The text of the work appears in the publication Writing the body with the body – Essays, Texts and Performances (Volume B) by Stefanie Knobel.

The booklet and a 12-piece postcard set accompanying the work are available to order.