Lead by: Francesco Mazzarella, Seher Mirza, Design School, Centre for Sustainable Fashion
This version of the brief was part of a large research project titled ‘Decolonising Fashion and Textiles’, led by Dr Francesco Mazzarella from Centre for Sustainable Fashion, UAL, with funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Delivered as part of the Collaborative Challenge Unit at London College of Fashion, UAL, this brief offered an opportunity for thirty Masters students from various courses across LCF to respond to a provocation in relation to fashion sustainability challenges and social issues. The brief invited students to critically reflect on ‘cultural appropriation’ practices often undertaken by fashion brands and instead promote cultural sustainability. The project supervisors Dr Francesco Mazzarella and Dr Seher Mirza encouraged the students to adopt an activist approach, challenge their own privilege and prejudices, and address power imbalances in their collaborative making practice.
Decolonising Fashion and Textiles
Student Projects
The students collaborated with six refugees and worked in six multidisciplinary teams to co-create design interventions aimed at fostering cultural sustainability within refugee communities and, in so doing, contribute to a process of decolonising design practice. Two teams co-designed fashion and textile artefacts celebrating the shifting identity of themselves and their refugee collaborators. Two teams developed an ethical storytelling campaign aimed at shifting the prevailing negative narratives around refugees. Other two teams focused on the legacy of the project, by developing a social enterprise model to enhance the resilience of refugees, and a creative campaign to advocate for policy change to overcome some of the barriers faced by refugees in the UK.
As an outcome, the project teams built new connections, exchanged cross-cultural experiences, developed new skills and mindsets, and explored the potential of their creative practice as a force for social change.
Team A ‘Craft Your Story’
Project Team: Shaikha Al-Ayoub, Yvonne Foley, Dian Kou, Shivani Rath, Kathy Udaondo Lennon in collaboration with Daniel Raymond
For the ‘Craft Your Story’ project, the team delivered a workshop which was a celebration of crafts, culture, and creativity. The primary goal of the project was to empower refugees, giving them agency over their crafts and celebrating their cultural heritage. The workshop fostered connections among people from diverse backgrounds and provided a platform to learn new crafts and appreciate the diversity of skills and traditions.
In the workshop, each participant created a fabric page using textiles and techniques from their culture and displaying their own unique creativity. The pages were assembled to form a fabric book showcasing and preserving the skills, stories, and traditions of refugee makers, while also serving as a bridge between artisans and those who appreciate their talents, as well as an innovative educational tool. The fabric book also serves as a directory for those interested in collaborating with or hiring artisans, fostering creative partnerships.
Team B ‘Shifting Identities’
Project Team: Lyuba Bessarab, Aditi Gupta, Rhea Lobo, Maahirah Sadiq, Gim Wong in collaboration with Dave Sohanpal
This project explores the evolution of identity and decolonisation through the medium of fashion, cyanotype prints, paint, and embroidery, finalised through a collage-like layering of patches onto a pair of jeans. This was carried out in collaboration with asylum seekers based in London through a workshop to facilitate discussion around identity and migration.
The team used the vehicle of jeans – something so common in our everyday lives, yet also a result of globalisation, colonialism, and slavery – to entice people to rethink fashion colonialism and reflect on how it manifests in today’s world. Through this artefact, the team encourage the viewer to reflect on their shifting identities, embrace it as ever evolving, recognise the multitude of factors influencing their identity, and furthermore, to use identity as a way to form deep rooted connections.
Team C ‘The Flavour Exchange Project’
Project Team: Janhvi Chopra, Manvi Jainth, Ana Oliveira Da Cunha, Sylvia Shoshan, Congye Zhang in collaboration with Sukhwinder Kaur Chandi and Noor
This team created a storytelling campaign aimed to shift narratives around refugees, share stories, and honour the diverse backgrounds of displaced individuals. Recognising food as one of the crucial factors that connects people to their roots, uniting individuals, and building empathy through shared experiences.
A workshop was facilitated with the focus of sharing stories about special and traditional recipes, to support integration and appreciation of each participant’s distinct cultural heritage. By translating the shared recipes into textile art, the project enabled a space for participants to explore their creativity and create a tangible output that became part of a symbolic ‘tablecloth’ artwork honouring diverse cultures. Each recipe shared during the workshop brought about personal stories etched with joy, nostalgia, and fond memories, which were collated into a ‘recipe book’, a keepsake of this project aimed at preserving these stories to be shared with many more people.
Team D ‘Beauty in Brokeness’
Project Team: Jingyi Bai, Eugenia Galeeva, Josefa Lavandero Olivares, Abigail Rigby, Yi-Ching Wang in collaboration with Karuna Marsh
‘Beauty in Brokenness’ is a performance encouraging people to appreciate imperfections, using the Japanese art of kintsugi to fix broken things with gold. It also draws on the Butoh ‘dance of darkness’ which is about accepting and appreciating darkness and misery. Although originally from Singapore, Karuna – reflecting on her shifting identity – is embracing the Japanese philosophy of Wabi Sabi, as a way to accept and embrace ourselves, including the bad parts of ourselves; it is a worldview centred on acceptance, transience and imperfection, which well aligns with her being trans and from a cultural minority. Her message is: what is seen as broken, different, or wrong by society, can be beautiful too.
Team E ‘The Feeling of Home’
Project Team: Xinghan Chen, Zichen Huang, Daria Nguyen, Aashi Shah, Gerui Zhang in collaboration with SK
This textile piece emerges from a profound exploration of cultural identity and the shared experiences of displacement and belonging. Through collective efforts within the team and the refugee collaborator, the project aims to honour and celebrate diverse cultural heritages. The artwork is a testament to the intimate connection between personal narratives and broader themes of international migration.
As international students, the team grappled with feelings of nostalgia and homesickness, prompting a deep reflection on their identities and cultural diversity. In ‘The Feeling of Home’, the team intertwined individual perspectives, weaving a tapestry that speaks to the universal human longing for a sense of belonging. Each stitch represents a moment of self-healing and introspection, as we navigate the complexities of displacement and cultural assimilation. Through this creative process, the team invites viewers to contemplate their own experiences of home and belonging, fostering a dialogue that transcends borders and celebrates our shared humanity.
Team F ‘Our Song’
Project Team: Boyuan Dou, Sanjana Ghosh, Daniella Klaus, Tanishq Pokriyal, Masa Takada in collaboration with Sheida Mokhtari Khojasteh
Tens of thousands of people are displaced every year owing to armed conflict and hostilities in their native countries. Many people are forced to abandon their homes, families, professions and even sense of identity in their search for safety and a place they can call home. ‘Our Song’ inverts the lens onto the viewer to showcase how anyone can be a refugee and eliminate the unsettling feeling of ‘otherness’ that comes with the refugee label since, at the end of the day, we are all human.
The soliloquy of the refugee collaborator and the creative use of Farsi poetry in the film is an attempt to depict the strength and steely resolve of anyone who finds themselves on this tumultuous journey. The refugee collaborator’s act of writing on the artefact – the Hijab, the traditional Middle Eastern headscarf, which has been sized up to nearly the size of a flag – is a symbol of the spirit of resilience against oppression as much as a reflection of her unwavering resolve. This is a force from within that transcends all grief, anguish, trauma and pain, and is common to all refugees who are on this difficult journey.
