Arshake highlights the series of events on art and fashion to be held June 5-7 at MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, curated by Dobrila Denegri, with guests from around the world among the most important curators, designers, artists, academics and researchers in the field of experimental fashion.
Programme of talks, lectures, screenings, and exhibitive events on-site and online involving international curators, artists, designers, scholars and researchers in fashion-related artistic practices, curated by Dobrila Denegri and realised in collaboration with MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome. For the first time in Rome, a set of influential and high-level speakers will be present together, exchanging knowledge and insights on fashion curation, education, new opportunities for upcoming generations of designers, and spaces for showcasing engaged and experimental positions. Speakers like Linda Loppa, among the most influential voices in fashion education; Iris Ruisch and José Teunissen, who will discuss the newest edition of the sustainable fashion biennial just opened in Arnheim and other cities, up to one of the most innovative and exciting designers like Yuima Nakazato, as well as emerging voices in the fashion theory and curating like Jeppe Ugelvig and Matteo Augello.
Through its title, Critical Fashion: Can it be Thought? Should it be Bought? this set of encounters and conversations aims to address controversies and paradoxes connected with critical fashion practice and its relation to the market-driven logic of fashion production and consumption. Experimental, research-oriented, and critical fashion-related practices produce content, meaning, and quest for alternatives to the dominant way fashion is conceived and produced. Yet, they are situated aside or outside the fashion system. Sometimes, they find their “shelter” within art venues, sometimes in other “independent” domains, and primarily within academic and educational contexts. But they don’t find systemic sustain within art circuits; independent ones are precarious anyway, and educational contexts are becoming more corporate, so even there, the support is limited.
This set of encounters aims to address the notion of “critical fashion” from different perspectives:
– From the position of educational institutions, focusing on an innovative and slightly subversive take on how future designers and creatives should be formed.
– It also wants to provide a first-hand outlook on curatorial and artistic experiences situated between art and fashion systems.
– Finally, it will seek to understand how this kind of practice can be sustained and whether there is space for new forms of interactions between academia, the art world, and the fashion industry. It will also try to articulate showcasing modalities that could provide higher visibility, critical articulation, and a broader affirmation of this kind of fashion-related artwork.
(from the press release)
cover image: “Excuse My Dust Extended”, 2017, Christina Dörfler in Zusammenarbeit mit Mirjam Papouschek. © Mirjam Papouschek, 2019. Models: Luise Böcker, Lola Fuchs, image via
CRITICAL FASHION. Can it be thought? Should it be bought?, curated by Dobrila Denegri, June 5 – 7, 2024, MACRO –Museum, Rome, Auditorium, Via Nizza 138, 00198 Roma (The sessions will be held in English. Free entry).
The programme is realised in collaboration with MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome and promoted by Azienda Speciale Palaexpo and the Assessorato alla Cultura of Roma Capitale. In collaboration with the Fashion Studies Department, LA Sapienza University, Rome; NABA – The New Art Academy, Fashion Department, Rome; University of California, Santa Cruz; and the Faculty of Design Arts, University of Technology, Bydgoszcz.
Supported by: Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport of the Republic of Austria and the Austrian Cultural Forum Rome; Embassy of Belgium General Delegation of Flanders; Embassy and Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; Embassy of Sweden and Swedish Institute; Royal Norwegian Embassy in Rome; Danish Academy in Rome; Polish Institute in Rome and The German Academy in Rome Villa Massimo.
Program (all sessions will be in English)
5th of June 2024
15.00 – 15.30 – Greetings and presentation of the conference by Dobrila Denegri
Auditorium
15.30 – 16.30 – Session 1: Critical Fashion: How to Teach it?
Auditorium
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Linda Loppa, Creative Director / Curator / Opinion Leader
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Clemens Thornquist, Head of the Fashion Design at The Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås
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Moderator: Dobrila Denegri
17.00 – 18.00 – Session 2: Beyond Clothes: Fashion Activism and its Platforms
Auditorium
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Iris Ruisch, Director, State of Fashion
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José Teunissen, Director, AMFI – Amsterdam Fashion Institute of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
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Moderator: Dobrila Denegri
18.00 – 19.00 – Session 3: Presentation of exhibitive interventions
Foyer
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Unsettled Matter, Manora Auersperg in collaboration with Natascha Unkart, Vienna
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Excuse My Dust Series, Christina Dörfler, Vienna
19.00 – 20.00
Cinema Hall
– Premiere of the video Duel by Anna-Sophie Berger, Vienna
6th of June 2024
12.00 – 13.00 – Session 4 (by invitation only) – Brainstorming & conversations on the future of fashion education
Rooftop of the Auditorium
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Romana Andò, Associate Professor of Sociology of Communication and Fashion, Department of Fashion Studies, Sapienza University, Rome
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Ivana Conte, Creative & Academic Director, ILA – International Luxury Academy, Rome/London
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Christina Dörfler, Lecturer, Kunst-Mode-Design, Herbststrasse, Higher Federal College of Fashion, Vienna
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Linda Loppa, Creative Director / Curator / Opinion Leader and Advisor, Polimoda, Florence
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Diego Manfreda, Course Leader of the Three-year Course in Fashion Design of the Rome Campus of NABA, New Academy of Fine Arts
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Szymon Owsiański, Lecturer, Department of Design, Faculty of Design Arts, University of Technology, Bydgoszcz
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Karisia Paponi, Professor, Fashion Department, Academy of Fine Arts, Catanzaro
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Clemens Thornquist, Head of Fashion Design Department, The Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås
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José Teunissen, Director, AMFI – Amsterdam Fashion Institute of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
15.00 – 15.30 – Greeting by Luca Lo Pinto, director of MACRO and presentation of fashion-related exhibitions and projects realised in the museum
Auditorium
15.30 – 17.00 – Session 5: Curating Inbetweeners 1/2
Auditorium
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Lecture + Q&A: Matthew Linde, Fashion exhibition-maker, Researcher and Writer
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Anna Sophie Berger, in conversation with Matthew Linde and Luca Lo Pinto
17.30 – 19.00 – Session 5: Curating Inbetweeners 2/2
Auditorium
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Lecture + Q&A: Jeppe Ugelvig, Curator, Historian and Cultural critic
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Tenant of Culture, in conversation with Dobrila Denegri and Jeppe Ugelvig
19.00 – 19.30 – Presentation of the new issue of VISCOSE Magazine
Auditorium
Viscose 6th issue is entitled TEXT and focuses on fashion as constructed through words, language and writing. From the pens of fashion journalists and art critics to the conceptual wordplay of designers, the issue delves into the aesthetic and critical effects of “writing fashion” in and outside of fashion industries. Co-edited with Laura Gardner.
7th of June 2024
15.00 – 16.00 – Online session 6: Supporting Experimental Fashion: Why and How?
Auditorium
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Yuima Nakazato, Fashion designer and founder of the Fashion Frontier Program, Tokyo
In conversation with Dobrila Denegri and Linda Loppa, and Arisa Kamada, Yoshihiro Oshima from the Fashion Frontiers program run by Yuima Nakazato Atelier
16.15 – 17.00 – Session 7: Fashion Research Platforms
Auditorium
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Elise By Olsen, Director, International Library of Fashion Research, Oslo
17.30 – 18.30 – Session 8: Teaching Experimental Fashion
Auditorium
Presentation of the publication Radical Fashion Exercises: A Workbook of Modes and Methods and a discussion
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Laura Gardner, Editor, Lecturer The School of Fashion and Textiles at RMIT University in Melbourne
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Daphne Mohajer va Pesaran, Lecturer, The School of Fashion and Textiles at RMIT University in Melbourne
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Clemens Thornquist, Head of Fashion Design Department, The Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås
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Jeppe Ugelvig, Curator, Historian and Cultural critic
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Alessandra Vaccari, associate professor, IUAV – Venice University
19.00 – 20.00 – Session 9: How to Make History: Vanity and Pleasure in Fashion Research
Auditorium
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Performative lecture: Dr. Matteo Augello, Fashion Theoretician
