The Conversations on Decoloniality & Fashion is a monthly online series initiated by the Collective in February 2021. This virtual platform beyond institutional, disciplinary and geographical boundaries aims to experiment with decolonial and decentral ways of knowledge-creation and sharing regarding fashion – through the relational and conversational, the communal and coalitional, and through a radical act of listening across multiple differences. Transcending academe, its main aim is to disrupt stubbornly persistent Eurocentric underpinnings of dominant fashion and encourage critical analysis and dialogue into an erased and denied fashion pluriverse.
The Conversations are inspired by the Rolando Vazquez’s and Walter Mignolo’s Decolonial Summer School and Cricket Keating’s (2005) coalitional consciousness building, which is a feminist method of self and collective education toward coalition to engender solidarity across multiple lines of difference.
“In conversation, engagement becomes key in the transformation from a position of consumption to a position of taking responsibility, from a position of indifference to a position of engagement in-difference- with others, from a place of compassion, where we allow ourselves to be touched and transformed by the other.” (Rolando Vazquez, 2022)
Each Conversation comprises a 90-minute session split into three 30-minute parts: a 30-minute conversation between the conveners and guest(s), a 30-minute breakout session of five people to enable more intimate exchange, understanding and (un)learning with each other, and a final 30-minute conversation with the whole group. The first 30 minutes are recorded and made available on the RCDF YouTube channel as part of an open-access online archive on decoloniality and fashion.
Each first Thursday of the month, a guest moderator will moderate a conversation with stakeholders from their community and participants from around the world. Timeslots will alter according to the time zone of the guests. Everyone is welcome to join, regardless of background, position or level of English language proficiency. Participation is based on a voluntary 25 euro donation (PayPal or by bank transfer IBAN: NL39INGB0674877012/ BIC: INGBNL2A). Donations allow us to cover a modest honorarium for the conveners, guests and organisers. Registration on Eventbrite is required to receive the monthly updates and more in-depth details of the sessions. If you have already registered in previous year, there is no need register again, but simply renew your donation.
2024
For this year’s programme, we have decided to focus on a recurring topic, Designing Goods, Crafting Communities: What is Really Being Lost?, which will be addressed each month by different moderators and guests, from different parts of the world.
In the context of fashion globalisation, the role of local fashion designers in ‘rethinking/repurposing/ modernizing’ local fashions and crafts is welcomed as a solution to ‘save’ local clothing heritages and crafts. Fashion design schools across the world, dominated by eurocentric curricula, are training designers to see their cultural heritage as a source of inspiration to take and extract from to create consumer goods for urban/foreign/western consumers rather than the local custodial communities themselves.
Many of these cultural craft heritages are in the keeping of (marginalised) communities and crafts people often located in rural areas, whose livelihoods have become precarious precisely because of the impact of the capitalist fashion system on contemporary forms of identity and belonging (Sandra Niessen, 2020). What is ignored by these designers, is the intrinsic purpose and value of these crafts, which was never to create consumer goods. Instead, the making of material objects engaged deeply with a relationality to community, nature and ancestry (Richa Sood, 2023). Crafts are embedded with local world views and the passing down of local histories and knowledges.
So, when (local and international) fashion designers turn to (their own) cultural heritages as a means to create ‘distinct’ design products for (mass) commercial purposes, what is really being lost? When (mostly urban) designers collaborate with (mostly rural) crafts people to create contemporary design objects for an international market, which unequal power dynamics are at play? When the world of design, driven by individuality, extraction and profit collides with the world of craft, based on community, relationality and sustainability, what is really being ‘sold’? How is time traded and negotiated when one system prioritises reducing time to increase profit and the other values ‘taking-time’ as vital to connect, exchange and nurture relationality?
Programme 2024
| Thursday, 8 February 2024 at 12-1:30pm EAT (10-11:30am CET) with Chepkemboi Mang’ira, (OwnYourCulture Kenya), Alex Dingiria (Kali Works), Charity Kiarie (Kiarie Africa) and Sheila Onyango (Okapu). Watch the recordings here. |
| Thursday, 7 March 2024 at 3-4:30pm IST (10:30am-12pm CET) with Richa Sood (Indian Institute for Art & Design), Soumya Pande (Indian Institute for Art & Design), Sachin Sachar (Studio Imbibe) and Anas Sheikh (23°N.69°E.). Watch the recordings here. |
| Thursday, 4 April 2024 |
| Thursday, 2 May 2024 |
| Thursday, 6 June 2024 |
| Thursday, 4 July 2024 |
| Thursday, 5 September 2024 |
| Thursday, 3 October 2024 |
| Thursday, 7 November 2024 |
| Thursday, 5 December 2024 |
Programme 2023
| March 2023 On ‘Fashion Impacts,’ convened by Daniela Goeller with heeten bhagat |
| Fashion thinking is finding a valuable place in academia as a tool to think. Ongoing debates around climate change and the environmental and social issues arising from colonialism and globalization have focused necessary attention on how we dress. So, fashion as a conceptual and theoretical construct has become a valuable tool to further trouble these debates. In this conversation, fashion catalyses playful and inventive ways to look at the world differently. We take on 3 provocations: fashion (n) impact (v), fashioning impact (n) and impact(s) of fashion. |
| Selected materials: · Podcast Son[i]a #291 by Irit Rogoff · Júlia Vilaça & Manuel López, 5 Signs that will Help You Understand How Fashion Reflects Social Changes, FASHINOVATION. · Saravanan & Nithyaprakash Venkatasamy. 2016. Fashion Trends and Its Impact on Society. Paper presented at the International Conference on Textiles, Apparels and Fashion COimbatore, Tamilnadu, India. |
| May 2023 On ‘Decolonising Cotton in Pakistan,’ convened by the Pakistan Collective for Decolonial Practice |
| Many factors have contributed to the change in how Pakistan produces cotton among other crops. The effects on the clothing industry at large, and especially the local, indigenous hand-produced fabrics are grave yet ignored. Pakistan will not be growing any cotton in the province of Sindh this year. This results from short- sighted British policies that aimed to produce abundant amounts of cotton for export, but did not evaluate the effects of these policies in the long term. The conversation will cover the story of Pakistan’s rivers, water distribution systems, the seeds being used, and their effects. |
| Selected materials: · Speakers call for efforts to promote Organic Cotton Production in Pakistan (Daily Times Pakistan) · Organic Cotton in Pakistan: Policy Analysis and Recommendations (blog.cabi.org) · Hydropolitics in the Indus Basin: The Indus Water Treaty & Water Mismanagement in Pakistan (yris.yira.org) |
| July 2023 On ‘Crafting Encounters in Contested Spaces, Through Fashion Activism,’ convened by Francesco Mazzarella from the Centre for Sustainable Fashion & Erica de Greef from AFRI |
| What does it mean to work in the ‘sacrifice zone’, and with vulnerable communities, through the lens of fashion activism? When working across very different contexts, how do we prevent the perpetuation of the extractive violence(s) of the fashion system that appropriates cultures and the neoliberal/capitalist institutions that commodify crafts, and address our privileges that hold power? Can we lean into the complexities of these relations, and what if we trouble our positionalities in the skewed hierarchies at play that these projects are founded on? |
| Selected materials: · Sara Ahmed (2020) Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Postcoloniality. London and New York: Routledge. · Fataneh Farahani (2021) Hospitality and hostility: The dilemmas of intimate life and refugee hosting. In Journal of Sociology. Vol 57(3)664-673 · Mazzarella, F., Storey, H. & Orta, L. (2023). Valuing Refugee and Migrant Voices. · Fiona Murphy & Evropi Chatzipanagiotidou (2020) Crafting the Entrepreneurial Self: Refugees, Displaced Livelihoods, and the Politics of Labor in Turkey. In Exertions, Society for the Anthropology of Work. |
| October 2023 On ‘Liberating Local Identities North Africa,’ convened by Nada Koreish from the Fashion Liberation Collective North Africa (FLCNA) |
| “We are proud to present to you a real conversation, decolonial in practice via our take over for RCDF this October. We are the fashion liberation collective. We are a collective group of disruptors, agitators, activist design, and art practitioners. Whether we are in Algeria, Egypt or part of the Diaspora we are united in our commonality: post-colonial generations of north Africa who have been ‘awakened’. This conversation shall investigate the ‘local vs global’ debate and how we need to pull back our decolonial efforts in order to decolonize locally first. This will be a one-of-a-kind presentation, a raw conversation. We have chosen not to use the usual western normative sources, we are the sources, our experience, and localities. Looking forward to presenting a disruptive 90 mins with you all.” FLCNA |
| November 2023 On ‘Weaving Presences: Fashion and Restorative Practices,’ convened by Mi Medrado from CoMoDe |
| The conversation will focus on how to take decolonial aesthesis as a methodology towards fashion and restorative practices. It will engage with vocabulary, verbal fluency, and story components to develop decolonial narrative skills. The activity will join the National Brazilian Black Consciousness month activities in November 2023. |
| December 2023 On ‘What’s in a Name? Let’s korero korowai,’ convened by Doris de Pont from the New Zealand Fashion Museum |
| Kākahu is the umbrella term for garments in the Māori language but just like dress in other cultures, there are many words that specifically describe items of clothing in terms of the materials and make of them, and their use. Korowai, a very specific labour-intensive finely woven and decorated cloak, is often used today as a generic name for any cloak, to the consternation of the skilled weavers who still deploy the traditional arts. Our conversation will address this blunting of terminology and canvas some strategies for expanding the language used for kākahu so that traditional names honour traditional practices while new words enrich the Māori vocabulary to capture modern materials, practices, and uses. |
Programme 2022
| Thursday, 3 February 2022 On ‘Coalitional Consciousness Building’ with Cricket Keating. |
| Selected materials: · Cricket Keating. 2005. ‘Building Coalitional Consciousness.’ NWSA Journal 17(2): pp. 86-103. |
| Thursday, 3 March 2022 On ‘Vistas of Modernity’ with Rolando Vázquez and Siviwe James. |
| Selected materials: · Rolando Vazquez. 2020. ‘Vistas of Modernity: Decolonial Aesthesis and the End of the Contemporary.’ Mondriaan Fonds. · ‘Vistas of Modernity’ with Gloria Wekker, Nancy Jouwe, Rolando Vazquez a.o. 11 September 2021 (automated translation closed captions available). |
| Thursday, 7 April 2022 On ‘Indigenous Gender Knowledge’ with Erica de Greef and Angela Jansen |
| Selected materials: · Bobby Sanchez (2021) Ancient Identity Selected works: · Maria Lugones (2016) ‘The Coloniality of Gender’ In: The Palgrave Handbook of Gender and Development, edited by Wendy Harcourt (Palgrave Macmillian): pp. 13-33. Selected works: · Alok Vaid Menon (2021). ‘The Cross-Dressing Laws Never Ended: Why We Must #Degender Fashion.’ Longread 4 State of Fashion |
| Thursday, 5 May 2022 On ‘Design for the Pluriverse’ with Sophie Krier and Erik Wong. |
| Selected materials: · Arturo Escobar (2018) ‘Introduction.’ In Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Durham and London: Duke University Press, pp. 1-21. · Arturo Escobar: Designs for the Pluriverse // Clark University Atwood Lecture, 2017 (in English with automated translation captions available) · Thinking With Arturo Escobar: Pluriversal Politics, with contribution by Rolando Vazquez // Research Centre for Material Culture, 2020 (English with automated translation captions available). · Sophie Krier and Eric Wong (2021) ‘In Search of the Pluriverse’ Podcast series (in English). |
| Thursday, 2 June 2022 On ‘Appropriation, Reparation, Repair’ with Solen Kipoz. |
| Selected materials: · Syllabus Fragments of Repair/La Colonie Nomade · In Conversation: Kader Attia & Charles Stankievech (27 January 2018; 1h29, in English with closed captions translation) · Dilek Himam (2013) Ahimsa: Showing Kindness to Dresses. PAD Journal 10 · Museum catalogue Ahimsa: The Other Life of Clothes, 8-22 October 2012. |
| Thursday, 7 July 2022 On ‘Rethinking Fashion Globalization’ with Erica de Greef, Sarah Cheang, Hazel Clark, Chepkemboi Mang’ira, Harriette Richards & Daan van Dartel. |
| Selected materials: · Introduction to Rethinking Fashion Globalization by Sarah Cheang, Erica de Greef and Takagi Yoko |
| Thursday, 1 September 2022 On ‘Learning to Unlearn’ with Madina Tlostanova and Walter Mignolo. |
| Selected materials: · Madina Tlostanova and Walter Mignolo (2012) ‘Introduction: Learning to Unlearn: Thinking Decolonially.’ In Learning to Unlearn: Decolonial Reflections from Eurasia and the Americas. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. · Madina Tlostanova and Walter Mignolo (2012) ‘Appendix: Amawtay Wasi Universidad Intercultural de los Pueblos y Naciones Indigenas del Ecuador.’ In Learning to Unlearn: Decolonial Reflections from Eurasia and the Americas. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. |
| Thursday, 6 October 2022 On ‘Decolonial Pedagogy’ with Catherine Walsh. |
| Selected materials: · Catherine Walsh (2017) Pedagocías decoloniales. Prácticas insurgentes de resistir, (re)existir y (re)vivir. Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala. · Catherine Walsh (2018). ‘On Decolonial Dangers, Decolonial Cracks, and Decolonial Pedagogies Rising.’ In On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis, edited by Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh. Duke University Press, pp. 81-98. |
| Thursday, 3 November 2022 On ‘Critical Theory of Patriarchy’ with Sikhanyisiwe Sebata. |
| Selected materials: · Claudia von Werlhof (2015). ‘Madre tierra o muerte. Reflexiones para una teoría crítica del patriarcado’ (Mexico: Cooperativa El Rebozo) (transl. ‘Mother Earth or Death: Reflections for a Critical Theory of Patriarchy’) · Claudia von Werlhof (2004). ‘Capitalist Patriarchy and the Struggle for a Deep Alternative.’ Contribution for the national/international Conference ‘A Radically Different World View is Possible. The Gift-Economy Inside and Outside Patriarchal Capitalism,’ Las Vegas, USA, 13th – 14th of November 2004.· Sikhanyisiwe Sebata, 2021, ‘Her: A Disintegrated Notion.’ · Sefelepelo Sebata. Breaking Patriarchy – A viewpoint from Rural Zimbabwe. · Sefelepelo Sebata. Resource Governance And Patriarchy. · Sefelepelo Sebata. Matriarchs – Creating An Enabling Environment For Patriarchs To Flourish. |
| Thursday, 1 December 2022 On ‘Hosting, Listening, (Un)Learning’ with Erica de Greef, Shayna Goncalves and Angela Jansen. |
| Selected materials: · Erica de Greef and Angela Jansen (expected in 2023). ‘Conversations on Decoloniality & Fashion: Hosting, Listening, (Un)Learning.’ In Sustainability Challenges in the Fashion Industry – Civilization crisis, Decolonization, Cultural Legacy, and Transitions, edited by Miguel Angel Gardetti and Patricia Larios-Francia. |
Programme 2021
| Saturday, 6 February 2021 on ‘Contemporary Fashion and Modernity/Coloniality’ with Angela Jansen. |
| Selected works: · Angela Jansen. 2020. ‘Fashion and the Phantasmagoria of Modernity: An Introduction to Decolonial Fashion Discourse.’ Fashion Theory: Decoloniality & Fashion 24(6). |
| Saturday, 6 March 2021 on ‘Some Key Propositions of Decolonial Thinking’ with Walter Mignolo. |
| Selected works: · Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh. 2018. ‘Introduction.’ In On Decoloniality – Concepts, Analytics and Praxis. Edited by Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh. Duke University Press, pp. 1-12. · Walter Mignolo. 2013. ‘Enacting the Archives, Decentering the Muses: The Museum of Islamic Art in Doha and the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore.’ Ibraaz November 2013. · Walter Mignolo. 2013. ‘Re-emerging, Decentring and Delinking: Shifting the Geographies of Sensing, Believing and Knowing.’ Ibraaz May 2013. · Walter Mignolo. 2013. ‘Sensing Otherwise: A Story of an Exhibition.’ Ibraaz September 2013. |
| Saturday, 3 April 2021 on ‘Modernity/Coloniality and Sustainability in Fashion’ with Sandra Niessen. |
| Selected works: · Sandra Niessen. 2020. ‘Fashion, its Sacrifice Zone, and Sustainability.’ Fashion Theory: Decoloniality & Fashion 24(6). · Sandra Niessen. 2020. ‘Regenerative Fashion: There Can Be No Other.’ This is an Intervention by State of Fashion. · Sandra Niessen. 2020. ‘Regenerative Fashion: There Can Be No Other.’ Long-read by State of Fashion. |
| Saturday, 1 May 2021 on ‘Decolonial AestheSis and Fashion’ with Walter Mignolo and Rolando Vazquez. |
| Selected works: · Walter Mignolo and Rolando Vázquez, ‘Decolonial AestheSis: Colonial Wounds/Decolonial Healings,’ Social Text Periscope, 2013. · Ruben Gaztambide-Fernández (2014), ‘Decolonial Options and Artistic/AestheSic Entanglements: An Interview with Walter Mignolo‘ Decolonization: Indegeneity, Education & Society, Vol 3(1), pp. 196-212. · ‘Decolonial Aesthetics/aesthesis Has Become a Connector Across the Continents: A Conversation with Walter Mignolo‘ (2014) Contemporary&. · ‘Decolonial Aesthetics.’ Fuse Fall 2013 · ‘Decolonial Listening: An Interview with Rolando Vazquez‘ · Rolando Vázquez, ‘Towards a Decolonial Critique of Modernity: Buen Vivir, Relationality and the Task of Listening.’ In Raúl Fornet-Betancourt (ed.), Capital, Poverty, Development, Denktraditionen im Dialog:Studien zur Befreiung und interkulturalität, Vol 33, Wissenschaftsverlag Mainz: Aachen 2012, pp 241-252. |
| Saturday, 5 June 2021 on ‘Modernity/Coloniality and Luxury Fashion’ with Toby Slade. |
| Selected works: · Toby Slade (2020)’Decolonizing Luxury Fashion in Japan.’ Fashion Theory: Decoloniality & Fashion 24(6), pp. 837-857. |
| Saturday, 3 July 2021 on ‘The Role of Fashion in Global Unequal Power Relations’ with Jean Casimir |
| Selected works: · Anibal Quijano (2007) ’Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality,’ Cultural Studies 21(2), pp. 168-178. |
| Saturday, 4 September 2021 on ‘Fashion Curation as Decolonial Practice’ with Erica de Greef and Amanda Maples |
| Selected works: · Erica de Greef (2020), ‘Curating Fashion as Decolonial Practice: Ndwalane’s Mblaselo and a Politics of Remembering,’ Fashion Theory 24(6): pp. 901-920. · Cornelia Lund (2020), ‘Deconstructing Fashion: An Interview with Beatrice Angut Oola,’ Fashion Theory 24(6): pp. 967-970. |
| Saturday, 2 October 2021 on ‘Modernity, the Greatest Show on Earth: Thoughts on Visibility’ with Shayna Goncalves, Erica de Greef, Angela Jansen and Jean Casimir |
| Selected works: · Rolando Vázquez. 2010. ‘Modernity, the Greatest Show on Earth: Thoughts on Visibility.’ Borderlands e-journal vol 9 nr 2. |
| Saturday, 6 November 2021 on ‘Decolonzing Fashion Curriculum’ with Sarah Cheang and Shehnaz Suterwalla |
| Selected works: · Sarah Cheang and Shehnaz Suterwalla. 2020. ‘Decolonizing the Curriculum? Transformation, Emotion, and Positionality in Teaching.’ Fashion Theory: Fashion and Decoloniality 24(6). |
| Saturday, 4 December 2021 on ‘The End of the Contemporary’ with Erica de Greef and Angela Jansen |
| Selected works: · Rolando Vázquez. 2018. ‘The Museum, Decoloniality and the End of the Contemporary.’ In The Future of the New, Artistic Innovation in Times of Social Acceleration. Edited by Thijs Lijster. · ‘Decolonial Thinking with Rolando Vázquez: The End of the Contemporary?‘ (2017) Contemporary&. |
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