Re-Visioning Fashion Theories: Postcolonial and Critical Transcultural Perspectives
Conference Organizers: Prof Dr Elke Gaugele, Dr Birgit Haehnel, Dr Monica Titton
The conference language is English.
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in cooperation with Research Group Art Production and Art Theory in the Age of Global Migratio”, Verein für Kunst und Kulturwissenschaften, Ulm and University of Applied Arts Vienna, post-graduate program / ecm educating/curating/managing
Fashion research and fashion theory are still very much influenced by the dominance of a Euro-American perspective which often leads to a restricted scope of analysis of historical and contemporary developments of globalisation. Historically fashion represents a Western paradigm of hegemonial colonial embodiment and a process of othering. In the course of modernity fashion has turned into a politics of appearance that expresses structures of power and spatial orders as a cultural performance of global and local relationships.
While a critical revision of fashion theories and their core vocabulary from a postcolonial perspective has not yet been undertaken, by theorising the term “style” in contrast to “fashion”, Cultural Studies scholars have incorporated postcolonial perspectives and mapped phantom histories of migration routes and race relations (Hebdige).
This is the starting point for the symposium “Re-Visioning Fashion Theories – Postcolonial and Critical Transcultural Perspectives”. In critically examining and challenging fashion and fashion theories as Western concepts, the symposium brings together international scholars and practitioners for an interdisciplinary discussion of postcolonial approaches to historical and contemporary fashions.
Areas of investigation include:
- Postcolonial perspectives on fashion and fashion theory
- Analyses of theories and methods of fashion research as strategies of a white, patriarchal and European gaze
- Investigations of the reception of fashion and textiles within the contexts of contemporary processes of migration and globalization and their reflection in theories of diaspora and hybridity
- Postcolonial and critical economical analyses of the neo-colonising effects of the fashion industry and explorations of possible alternatives
Please email revisioningfashion@gmail.com for registration
Friday, 11th December 2015
Location: Academy of Fine Arts, Karl-Schweighofer-Gasse 3, Room 306, 1070 Vienna
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09:30 – 10:00 |
Registration & Coffee |
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10:00 – 12:00 |
Welcome: Andrea Braidt, Vice Rector for Art and Research, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
The Implementation of Western Culture in Austria: Adolf Loos’s Colonial Fashion Theory Re-Visioning Fashion Theories Chair: Birgit Mersmann, University of Cologne (D) & University of Basel (CH) |
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12:00 – 13:00 |
Lunch break |
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13:00 – 15:00 |
Panel 2: Global Migration and Fashion Theory Fresh Off the Boat – On Fleeing, Migration and Fashion (Theory) Stylin’: (Re-)fashioning African Diasporan Identities Traveling Fashion: Exotism and Tropicalism Chair: Elke Gaugele, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna |
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15:00 – 15:30 |
Coffee break |
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15:30 – 18:00 |
Panel 3: Political Techniques of Fashion Theories: De- and Recolonizing Policies Adapting and Fashioning National Styles in India On the Un-/usability of the Concept of Self-Orientalization "Cabaret Crusades" – Costumes of Another History? Chair: Birgit Haehnel, University of Osnabrück (D) |
Saturday, 12th December 2015
Location: Academy of Fine Arts, Karl-Schweighofer-Gasse 3, Room 206, 1070 Vienna
and University of Applied Arts Vienna, Angewandte Innovation Laboratory (AIL), Franz-Josefs-Kai 3, 1010 Vienna
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10:00 – 12:30 |
Panel 4: The Global Fashion Industry: Neoliberalism, Cultural Appropriation and Empowering Alternatives Organizing Markets in the Global Fashion Industry Fashion Copying and Racial Feelings The Commodification of Ethnicity: Vlisco Fabrics Open Wear. On the Social Design of Fashion Chair: Monica Titton, University of Applied Arts, Vienna |
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12:30 – 14:00 |
Lunch break & Transfer to Angewandte Innovation Laboratory |
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14:00 – 15:00 |
Welcome:
Beatrice Jaschke, Co-director postgraduate program /ecm as representative of Barbara Putz-Plecko, Vice Rector, University of Applied Arts Vienna
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Curator’s tour through the exhibition: Johannes Mantl & Eva Meran |
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15:00 – 17:30 |
Decolonizing Imaginaries in the Fashion World Keynote: Kemi Bassene, Clark House Initiative, Paris (F) Respondent: Sonja Eismann, Berlin (D) Chair: Nora Sternfeld, University of Applied Arts, Vienna & Aalto University Helsinki (FI) |
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17:30 – 18:30 |
Performance: B[e]Ware – Singer vs. Abhörapparat |
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18:30 |
Drinks & Closing of the Conference |