The Fold is a seven-week online course structured around the fold as both tactile materiality and conceptual metaphor, supported by an exchange of readings, dialogues, and creative exchanges. The course draws on key debates and hosts a collective exploration of (k)new knowledges, afro-sustainable practices, and ways of coming to know African fashion histories and futures. It responds to a demand by designers, artists, academics, and decolonial thinkers seeking spaces and ways to develop new discourses for and with African fashion.
The Fold consists of three projects led by the African Fashion Research Institute in partnership with Creative Nestlings and supported by the British Council for the New Narratives Programme 2023 in Africa. A creative research residency and exhibition, podcast series, and fashion glossary each respond creatively and conceptually to the fold in African fashion, disrupting stereotypes about Africa and connecting creative youth communities across the continent and diaspora.
The Fold is a creative research platform curated and produced by the African Fashion Research Institute in partnership with the Creative Nestlings Foundation, and supported by the British Council under their 2023 New Narratives Programme. The year-long research project consists of 3 new narratives: a creative Pan-African Research Residency between Uganda and South Africa; an afrocentric audio-visual fashion Glossary stitching fold-words into shareable compilations; and a polyvocal co-authored Podcast series.
Each explores the hidden, unseen, and ignored value folded away in African fashion, intending to disrupt stereotypes and connect creative communities across the continent and diaspora. Together, the projects contribute to documenting the threads of history, culture and fashion. Through the folding and unfolding of languages, locations, and aesthetics, the projects present alternate knowledge, languages and routes to other fashion futures.
FUNDERS, PARTNERS & COLLABORATIONS
British Council; National Arts Council; Creative Nestlings; Art Meets; 2dots Agency; KZNSA Gallery; Substance Point; Amanda Laird Cherry; Durban University of Technology; KQ Hub; Afropocene; Jose Hendo; Abdul Dube.
Structure: 7 x online live sessions with Pan-African convenors on Zoom
Small learning cohorts of 15-20 per course
4 x per year provisionally starting April; June; September; November
Dates & times are convened to suit the collective cohort
7 x 1-hour contact sessions
7 x 3-4 hours of preparation/reading/reflection time
One final (summative) creative/academic output
No prior qualifications required, rather a dynamic engagement with questions of Afrocentric fashion practices, knowledges and futures.
To be announced
Session 1: Introductions / Positionalities. Facilitator: Erica de Greef
Session 2: Imiphindo kwaXhosa: Ukugotywa kweelwimi (Linguistic folds). Facilitator: Siviwe James
Session 3: How Do You Wear Your Memory: Memory as Material. Facilitator: Liz Kobusinge
Session 4: “BARK PRACTICE” Use of ecological indigenous practices in contemporary art making. Facilitator: Sheila Nakitende
Session 5: A Journey Towards an Afrocentric Pattern-Making System. Facilitator: Lesiba Mabitsela
Session 6: Glossaries. Destabilising meaning-making with critical/speculative/queering methodologies. Facilitator: Heeten Bhagat.
Session 7: Alternative Approaches
Register your interest BELOW
For institutional offers and opportunities, please email erica@afri.digital