The Lowlands Decolonial Fashion Network (LDFN) , consisting of FASHIONCLASH, the Linen Project, Crafts Council Nederland, Tailors & Wearers and the Research Collective for Decoloniality & Fashion, is inviting you to join us for a conversation on ‘What decoloniality means in a Dutch Context?’ .
An event within the context of Global Fashioning Assembly 2024.
On 11 October 2024, 40 people can join us in-person at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, while others are welcome to join the conversation online ( please indicate when you register if you will be joining us in-person or online) to reflect on these questions and topics, while we put our hands to work.
You can register here: JOIN LDNF at Jan van Eyck or online.
What came before: Four field trips
In June 2024, the Linen Project invited the other network members for a one-day field-trip to a flax field in Arnhem to address the role of local resources and knowledges to solve current problems.
End of June 2024, FASHIONCLASH organized a one-week residency during which ten fashion practitioners reflected on questions of decoloniality in the Dutch context in general and in relation to fashion more specifically. The other network members joined them for one afternoon. The ten fashion practitioners are: Tevin Blancheville, Angela Jansen, Catta Labeij Donkersloot, Lena Winterink, Gabrielle Swart, Kenza Vandeput, Agatha Prieto Jeanty, Robin Nimanong, Andrea Kristic, Kuiyu Kang'ari.
End of August 2024, Tailors & Wearers commissioned three designers to ‘rethink’ the Surinamese angisa to address the role of cultural heritage through a decolonial lens. The other network members visited T&W and the designers to reflect on their work proces and their research.
Early September 2024, the Crafts Council Nederland organised an afternoon of Dutch crafting as a process to reflect on embodied knowledges, community building and intergenerational knowledge transmission.
The Research Collective for Decoloniality & Fashion has been coordinating the overall process of the Dutch hosting of the GFA24.
Impressions from the four field trips
About the Dutch hosting communities
FASHIONCLASH is a development and presentation platform for fashion (culture) that contributes through crossovers to, on the one hand, the individual talent development of the new generation of fashion makers and, on the other hand, to general awareness of the role of fashion in the world. Established in 2009, FASHIONCLASH initiates, produces and presents work of a new generation of fashion practitioners who research, reflect, contextualize and celebrate contemporary fashion(culture). FASHIONCLASH believes passionately in the positive contribution the art of fashion can make to personal and artistic development, identity building, society, culture and economy.
THE LINEN PROJECT investigates since 2018 and works towards reactivating the economic viability of small- scale local flax cultivation and linen production in the Netherlands. It seeks to reinstate the economy as a social, ecological and cultural domain and to strengthen socio-economic patterns and behaviours rooted in a commoning approach. The inherent connections between (cultural) heritage, education, agriculture, design, crafts, and the economy are activated as well as the exchange of diverse values, knowledge, skills and competencies.
THE CRAFTS COUNCIL NEDERLAND (founded in 2012) contributes to the development of crafts and the creative crafts culture in the Netherlands. CCNL is the initiator of a great and growing community of craftsman, museums and educational institutions, economy and government. Each party involved builds a link in the transition to a new form of meaning within the sector. Crafts knowledge belongs to the intangible heritage which gets transferred from person to person. Connecting people who still have this knowledge and people who want learn from it, is the natural result of our work.
TAILORS & WEARERS looks at Afro-Surinamese costume through the lens of craft, anthropology and photography. The purpose of the foundation is to research and preserve, present and provide education regarding Afro-Surinamese costumes. We do this by collecting and sharing knowledge, such as organizing events, meetings and presentations, creating educational material, providing workshops and acting as a knowledge platform, online and oNline, for interested parties and heritage practitioners.
THE RESEARCH COLLECTIVE ON DECOLONIALITY & FASHION (RCDF) is an experimental platform beyond institutional, disciplinary and geographical boundaries initiated in 2012. It aims to critique the denial and erasure of a diversity of fashioning systems due to eurocentricity, unequal global power relations based on the modern-colonial order and the Euro-American canon of normativity materialised in modern aesthetics. Transcending academe, the Collective aims to experiment with decentral and decolonial ways of knowledge-creation and sharing concerning fashion.
About Global Fashioning Assembly
The biennial Global Fashioning Assembly (GFA), with a first edition in 2022, is a unique online gathering of local fashion communities from all over the world to decenter and decolonise knowledge creation and sharing of body fashioning practices and heritages.
Rather than the event hosting participants, the participants pass on the hosting of the event to ensure self-representation, -determination and governance. Its main aim is to disrupt western-centric international fashion gatherings that often operate as gatekeepers to justify and perpetuate excluding and discriminating logics and validate English-centred knowledge.
Sparked by the grassroots-to-global possibilities of the digital, it goes beyond the limitation of one singular physical presentation, by bringing together a diversity of experiences, knowledges and cultural heritages by a diversity of institutes and communities that self- represent and self-narrate their cultural heritage. The decentralised format is inspired by around-the-world assemblies through which communities share in their own pathways to a politics of wholeness based on the principle that ’we can’t solve our crises using the same way of thinking that created them’ (Grassroots2Global).
Underpinning the GFA are collective ideation, decision-making and execution. Preparations take two years with the hosting communities meeting (bi)monthly to formulate the overall conceptual framework, thematic scopes, hosting communities, planning, budgeting and funding. Tasks are divided organically with smaller groups taking on different responsibilities (planning, budgeting, communication & production) according to the principle ‘by the communities, for the communities.’ Simultaneously, each hosting community decides on their own programme, content(s), format(s), language(s), aesthetics and participants according to its specific experiences and needs.
It is a uniquely innovative and impactful approach about living cultures, craft heritages and fashion knowledges that welcomes a wide diversity of voices and formats. Each hosting
community welcomes local stakeholders, communities and audiences, on and offline, in a combination of local languages and English. By using a shared language of ‘fashioning’, the GFA aims to:
create a hosting environment that is decentred, inclusive and co-created;
debunk the myth that the contemporary design and art is global, inclusive and for
everyone;
demonstrate pluriversal craft heritages and living fashioning systems beyond the
western paradigm;
bring attention to creative ecosystems that consider planet and people over profit;
raise awareness of the violence of the contemporary collections & the creative
economy;
promote a just transition to ethical, regenerative and fair creative practices; and
foster counter-strategies against polarisation through art, design, fashion and culture.
For the GFA24, 20 communities in 26 countries, across 6 continents, are hosting between 1- 20 October 2024, for a total of 40 hours of local programming and 20 hours of Sharing Councils at different times to accommodate their local time zones. Programmes address practical approaches to decoloniality in everyday life, exploring the tensions and challenges that arise when design and craft intersect in their local contexts. How to use creative resistance to challenge capitalist, colonial, Euro-centric, anthropocentric, and patriarchal systems of design and education through sustainable, ethical, slow, ecofeminist, decolonial, and circular approaches to fashion?
ABYA YALA Coalition (Latin America) Tuesday 1 October, 2:30pm UTC+2
'Imagining a decentralised footwear industry' by Cobbled Goods (Canada) Friday 4 October, 10:00am UTC+2
Reclaiming Community Practices: From Fashion Industry To Fashion Commons by Fashion Act Now (UK)
Saturday 5 October, 10:00am UTC+2
'Kazakh Fashion & Arts: Identity Sandwich' (Kazakhstan) Wednesday 9 October, 2:00pm UTC+2
UN/FOLDING_RE/FOLDING_FOLDED: Imiphindo kwaXhosa Season 2 - by African Fashion Research Institute (South-Africa) Thursday 10 October, 1:00pm UTC+2
'Fighting Fascism Through Fashion, Hacking White Supremacy' by the Austrian Center for Fashion Research (Austria) Friday 11 October, 11:00am UTC+2
'What Does Decoloniality Mean in a Dutch Context?' by the Lowlands Decolonial Fashion Network (Netherlands) Friday 11 October, 3:00pm UTC+2
DRESS AND BECOME (Chile) Saturday 12 October, 6:00pm UTC+2
SEWING A GREENER FUTURE FOR GHANA by GiFt (Ghana) Sunday 13 October, 4:00pm UTC+2
'Evolution of Ancestral Jewelry' by OwnYourCulture (Kenya) Tuesday 15 October, 2:00pm UTC+2
'Design Magic Through Craft: Textile Alchemy' by Witches of the East Collective(Turkey) Wednesday 16 October, 4:00pm UTC+2
Mendit Research Lab (Russia) Thursday 17 October, 11:00am UTC+2
Hui Auaha o Aotearoa - Open Day at the New Zealand Fashion Museum (Aotearoa) Saturday 19 October, 8:00am UTC+2
Decolonial Fashion and Design: A Global South in Portuguese-speaking (Brasil) Saturday 19 October, 5:00pm UTC+2
Stitching Stories - Kheta In The Classroom (India) Sunday 20 October, 12:00pm UTC+2
‘Not in Vogue: Decentering Fashion Narratives in Flanders’ by Losse Draadjes Collective (Belgium)
Monday 21 October, 1:00pm UTC+2
‘Needle and Thread – A Soft Discourse’ by Center for Research of Fashion and Clothing (Croatia)
Tuesday 22 October, 7:00pm UTC+2
Apnaiyat Pakistan Collective (Pakistan) Friday 25 October, 3:00pm UTC+2
'An Angolan Decolonial Performance' by Fashion + Urban Art (Angola) Saturday 26 October, 8:00pm UTC+2
"Our OLLA is not YOUR OLLA" by Fashion Liberation Collective North Africa Monday 28 October, 3:00pm UTC+1