VAC32: Decolonizing Fashion Studies: Rethinking Curriculum, Collections, and Creative Practice
About
Within fashion studies education and scholarship, we seek to identify ways to dismantle racism, classism, sexism, ableism, ageism, xenophobia, transphobia, and fatphobia in curriculum, university teaching collections, and creative design practice.
Open to New People
Active since: 2020
- Syracuse University
- Cornell University
- Rochester Institute of Technology
Collaborative Goals
Our goals are threefold and focus on ways to make curriculum, collections, and creative practice more accessible, equitable, inclusive, and anti-discriminatory. Fashion -- as a creative practice, complex industry, quotidian experience, and powerful site of subject formation -- is both full of productive possibility and yet also problematic in the ways that the industry, fashion museums, and even university curricula tend to perpetuate classism, sexism, ableism, racism, ageism, xenophobia, transphobia, and fatphobia. Dismantling structures of inequality in Fashion Studies requires that we analyze the current content of our programs, devise innovative pedagogical interventions, and develop initiatives and strategies that will diversify the curriculum, collections, and research projects, in addition to our student body and faculty.
In this Working Group, we have explored initiatives and possibilities that embed social justice within the pedagogical spectrum we employ in training students and the scholarship and research we conduct. We ask:
- How can we make our curricula more inclusive, accessible, and anti-discriminatory?
- How will we decolonize our fashion-related collections and diversify in ways that are respectful and ethical?
- How might our scholarly research, creative practice, and curatorial endeavors actively counter and critique forms of discrimination?
Group Organizers
Courtney Asztalos
Lead Curator, Curator of Plastics and Historical Artifacts Business Unit, Syracuse University
Activities
Curator’s Conversation, TEXTURES: the History and Art of Black Hair
Sept. 3, 2021, 12:30 p.m.
Annual Meeting and Tour of Cornell Fashion Facilities and Collections
May 9, 2022, 11 a.m.
Group Outcomes
- We held two public lectures: Dr. Tameka Ellington, who gave a hybrid of in-person and Zoom, and a second by Suuwayaqawilth (Jolleen Dick, Hupacasath First Nation), which was held on Zoom.
- Offering Zoom ensured accessibility across Central New York and beyond. A number of students attended both lectures, in addition to faculty and members of the general public. One lecture included approximately 60 attendees (between Zoom and in-person), and 30 attended the Zoom lecture.
- We received co-sponsorship for Dr. Tameka Ellington's lecture from Cornell's Public History Initiative, the Cornell Department of History, the Cornell Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, and Dr. Tasha Lewis's Weiss Teaching Fund.
- In addition, our Working Group was finally able to meet in-person once it was safe to do so, after the Spring 2022 semester ended. We toured the Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection, theAmerican Textile History Collection archives held in the Cornell University Library Annex, and discussed approaches to teaching, curation, and creative design practice that offered insights into achieving the goals previously outlined.
Curator’s Conversation, TEXTURES: the History and Art of Black Hair
Dr. Tameka Ellington's lecture about curating the exhibition, TEXTURES:
TEXTURES synthesizes research in history, fashion, art, and visual culture to reassess the “hair story” of peoples of African descent. Long a fraught topic for African Americans and others in the diaspora, Black hair is here addressed by artists, barbers, and activists in both its historical perceptions and its ramifications for self and society today. Combs, products, and implements from the collection of hair pioneer Willie Morrow are paired here with masterworks from artists including James Van Der Zee, Sonya Clark, Lorna Simpson, Mary Sibande and Zanele Muholi. Exploring topics such as the preferential treatment of straight hair, the social hierarchies of skin, and the power and politics of display, TEXTURES is a landmark exploration of Black hair and its important, complicated place in the history of African American life and culture. The exhibition is organized by the KSU Museum with co-curators, Joseph L. Underwood, assistant professor of art history at KSU and Tameka Ellington, associate professor at the School of Fashion at KSU. Dr. Tameka will discuss the conceptualization of TEXTURES and the cultural significance of the three themes of the exhibition: community and memory, hair politics and Black joy.
The Art of Being Suuwayaqawilth: Honoring Ancestors Through Creativity, Governance, Business, and Leadership in Contemporary Indigenous Life
Suuwayaqawilth's lecture, titled "The Art of Being Suuwayaqawilth: Honoring Ancestors Through Creativity, Governance, Business, and Leadership in Contemporary Indigenous Life:" Jolleen is a woman from the Hupacasath First Nation, one of the Nuu-chah-nulth nations, and she is living, working, and creating in Tsuu’ma as, also known as Alberni Valley, British Columbia, Canada. Her traditional name is suuwayaqawilth which means “somebody that holds something precious for safe keeping”. Jolleen brings her Nuu-chah-nulth teachings and values into all of her work, which is about connecting with people and building relationships. Her design practice draws inspiration from her maternal grandmother, who was a renowned seamstress, and woven basketry designs created by her maternal great-grandmother, to produce contemporary beadwork. Jolleen works full-time in the tourism industry and holds a seat on Hupacasath First Nation’s Council. She is also an entrepreneur with her own beadwork business that blends her passion for tourism and community development with creative design practice motivated by her ancestors and displayed through modern styles and techniques. In this lecture, she will speak about her journey as an Indigenous woman who is a contemporary jewelry designer, economic developer, and community leader.
Curator’s Conversation, TEXTURES: the History and Art of Black Hair
TEXTURES synthesizes research in history, fashion, art, and visual culture to reassess the “hair story” of peoples of African descent. Long a fraught topic for African Americans and others in the diaspora, Black hair is here addressed by artists, barbers, and activists in both its historical perceptions and its ramifications for self and society today. Combs, products, and implements from the collection of hair pioneer Willie Morrow are paired here with masterworks from artists including James Van Der Zee, Sonya Clark, Lorna Simpson, Mary Sibande and Zanele Muholi. Exploring topics such as the preferential treatment of straight hair, the social hierarchies of skin, and the power and politics of display, TEXTURES is a landmark exploration of Black hair and its important, complicated place in the history of African American life and culture. The exhibition is organized by the KSU Museum with co-curators, Joseph L. Underwood, assistant professor of art history at KSU and Tameka Ellington, associate professor at the School of Fashion at KSU.
Dr. Tameka Ellington will discuss the conceptualization of TEXTURES and the cultural significance of the three themes of the exhibition: community and memory, hair politics and Black joy.
“TEXTURES” lecture celebrates the history and art of Black hair
Sonia Clark’s “Black Hair Flag” is a striking image. The four-foot-tall cloth art piece is painted with the infamous flag of the Confederacy — but stitched into its fabric are the traditional African American hairstyles of the bantu knot and the cornrow, which make up the stars and stripes of the American flag. The piece captures the pain and joy of the African American experience in the building of our nation.
The juxtaposition in Clark’s art resonated with Tameka Ellington, former assistant dean for the College of the Arts and associate professor at the School of Fashion at Kent State University. “It’s saying that Black people are the reason that our country is so stable, so this country is our country,” Ellington explained.
The “Black Hair Flag” was one of the many art pieces explored in Ellington’s talk “TEXTURES: the history and art of Black hair” on Sept. 3. The seminar was co-sponsored by Tasha Lewis, associate professor in the Department of Fiber Science & Apparel Design, and was part of the “Fashion & Social Justice” lecture series.
The Art of Being Suuwayaqawilth: Honoring Ancestors Through Creativity, Governance, Business, and Leadership in Contemporary Indigenous Life
Jolleen is a woman from the Hupacasath First Nation, one of the Nuu-chah-nulth nations, and she is living, working, and creating in Tsuu’ma as, also known as Alberni Valley, British Columbia, Canada. Her traditional name is suuwayaqawilth which means “somebody that holds something precious for safe keeping”. Jolleen brings her Nuu-chah-nulth teachings and values into all of her work, which is about connecting with people and building relationships. Her design practice draws inspiration from her maternal grandmother, who was a renowned seamstress, and woven basketry designs created by her maternal great-grandmother, to produce contemporary beadwork. Jolleen works full-time in the tourism industry and holds a seat on Hupacasath First Nation’s Council. She is also an entrepreneur with her own beadwork business that blends her passion for tourism and community development with creative design practice motivated by her ancestors and displayed through modern styles and techniques. In this lecture, she will speak about her journey as an Indigenous woman who is a contemporary jewelry designer, economic developer, and community leader.
This talk is co-sponsored by the Central New York Humanities Corridor from an award by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Department of Human Centered Design. This talk is part of the "Fashion & Social Justice" lecture series, which is hosted by the "Decolonizing Fashion Studies: Rethinking Curriculum, Collections, and Creative Practice" Central NY Humanities Corridor working group.