In this series creatives, artists, designers and academics will explore and draw on lived experience, research and activism to further encourage sharing and collaboration.
Dr Sarah Cheang will explore East Asian Culture in relation to fashion and cultural expression. Her research challenges Eurocentrism in global fashion narratives. Dr Cheang will share how cultural identities are connected to the narratives of fashion and the impact this has on cultural visibility. Dr Cheang will examine current research and activity in this area. This event will invite reflection on current collecting policies and priorities.
Dr Sarah Cheang is Head of Programme for History of Design at the Royal College of Art, London. Her research centres on East Asian transnational fashion, ethnicity, material culture and the body from the nineteenth century to the present day, on which she has published widely. She is a founder member of the Research Collective for Decoloniality and Fashion, and the OPEN research group that push for greater equality, cultural sensitivity and more caring worldviews in the arts and creative industries. Her teaching interests reflect this commitment to more inclusive curricula. Recent publications include the co-edited volume Rethinking Fashion Globalization (2021), which engages more inclusive models, approaches and understandings of global fashion systems.
Moderator Dr Shehnaz Suterwalla is a writer, critic and curator. She is Senior Tutor (Research) at the Royal College of Art where she leads The Urgency of the Arts unit in the School of Arts and Humanities. Shehnaz’s work is concerned with decolonial praxis; her current interests concern art and literary writing, in particular art writing as decolonial aestheSis. Shehnaz is developing a manuscript of ekphrastic fiction exploring otherwise forms of writing beyond the conventions of art criticism and art theory.
Translation on image: " I was born in the South where the world is new and the pain is old".
Location:
The Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre
Victoria and Albert Museum
Cromwell Road
London, SW7 2RL
Text and pictures, copyright Victoria and Albert Museum and the participant