Designers, curators and researchers gather for Fashion in Museums Symposium at Museum Africa

Arts and Creative Industries

The African Fashion Research Institute (AFRI) convened a one-day Fashion in Museums Symposium at Museum Africa on Saturday, 6 September 2025. Supported by the French Embassy in South Africa and the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS), the symposium examined contemporary methodologies and radical curatorial strategies shaping how African fashion is researched, presented and archived in museums.

The programme brought together a wide range of voices. International participants included Alison Moloney, co-curator from Goldsmiths University, London, and French-Ivorian PhD scholar-artist Pierre-Antoine Vetterello. South African contributions featured Associate Professor Khaya Mchunu (University of Johannesburg), Kiara Gounder (Durban University of Technology), curator Wanda Lephoto, designer Sindiso Khumalo and hairstylist Ncumisa Duma, alongside younger researchers Lethabo Xulu, Duduzile Mathebula, Melusi Masike and Bongani Tau. Around 50 attendees, including academics, curators, researchers and designers, joined for presentations, provocations, panel discussions and audience dialogues, moderated by Dr Erica de Greef of AFRI.

The discussions interrogated how curatorial practices intervene in, rewrite and reshape narratives of fashion on and from the continent. Presentations explored how designers, filmmakers and curators are restoring lineages of fashion that draw on indigenous meaning systems, the black urban experience and afrocentric maker histories. What emerged was a spectrum of visual, spatial and sonic strategies that point to ways of disrupting colonial legacies embedded in museums and reimagining archives for decolonial futures.

Catch Fashion Accounts in Museum Africa before it closes on 30 September!

You might also like

Friends of the French Institute of South Africa

In 2014, former French Ambassador Elisabeth Barbier created the Friends of the French Institute Committee to offer strategic advice...

Exploring the intersection of identity and ideology in Language Education from a French-South African perspective

Narrating Linguistic and Cultural Diversity: Critical and multidisciplinary approaches in Second and Additional Language Education French-South African perspectives CONTEXT...

Leveraging Digital Arts for Climate Change Education

The Hub in Morija (Lesotho) hosted an animation workshop for its up-coming claymation mini-film planned for release on the...

SA participants for VivaTech 2025 in Paris announced

From 11 to 14 June 2025, VivaTech, Europe’s biggest startup and tech event, will take place in Paris with the world’s...

Let's get social

This message is only visible to admins.
Problem displaying Facebook posts.
Click to show error
Error: Server configuration issue
Twitter feed is not available at the moment.