The Making of African Fashion Studies

AFRI + CREATURE + BH365

The Transcultural Exchanges and Network research strand of CREATURE convenes “Reorienting Cultural Creativity”, a research series on the tactics of resistance in institutionalised establishments and postcolonial processes of globalisation. In an attempt to add new prospects and visions to the existing set-up of art and culture, the series redresses the balance for an actor-oriented approach.

Co-hosting with London Metropolitan University’s BAME Network through Black History 365, CREATURE brings together African Fashion Research Institute (AFRI) for a discussion on the development of a decolonial focus for African fashion studies.

In The Making of African Fashion Studies, co-founders Dr Erica de Greef and Lesiba Mabitsela present a range of projects led by African Fashion Research Institute (AFRI) that aims to decolonise curricula and archives, address erasures and stereotypes and explore the possibilities and affordances of the digital. Current projects such as performance interventions, an online course, and the development of a decolonial focus for African fashion studies, demonstrate how border thinking as a productive space expands praxis possibilities, how critiques of coloniality/modernity can be both conceptual and material and how different ways of listening to fashion bears witness to other ontologies, histories and memories.

Moderator: 

Prof. Wessie Ling is a Professor of Transcultural Arts and Design at the School of Art, Architecture and design at London Met and the Director of CREATURE.

Speaker: 

African Fashion Research Institute (AFRI) was founded in 2019 by Dr Erica de Greef and Lesiba Mabitsela, and serves as a research, archival and curatorial platform dedicated to the development and decolonisation African fashion discourse, bringing African fashion research communities, histories and aesthetics to diverse, local and global audiences.

Discussants:

James Hunting is an educator and artist, his areas of interest are focussed on the intricacies and questions of identities, belonging, including, othering and being, interlinked with desire and issues around the relevance of making. He is the course leader for BA Textiles BA (Hons), London Metropolitan University.

Kevin Brazant is a learning and educational development practitioner supporting early career academics transitioning into teaching and learning from the creative industries. He is also a member of the BAME Voice Staff network committee at London Metropolitan University and co-founder of Lounge Akademics a movement of activists, creatives, academics, and students committed to creating ‘critical’ digital content in the form of podcasts, and academic mixtapes. He uses his platform to explore themes of decolonising education, critical pedagogies and disrupting industries through digital content innovation.