Fashioning Reconciliation
| Date | May 28-30, 2020 |
| Location | Harbourfront Centre 235 Queens Quay W, Toronto, ON View Map (external link) |
| Organized by | FCAD’s Centre for Fashion Diversity and Social Change and the Saagajiwe Centre for Indigenous Research and Creation |
| Open to | Public |
| Contact | Alysia Myette amyette@torontomu.ca |
The Fashioning Reconciliation Symposium is a
three-day symposium running concurrently and in collaboration with Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto, (external link) (IFWTO).
The Fashioning Reconciliation* Symposium will bring Indigenous and settler researchers together with Indigenous fashion designers, industry professionals, students, knowledge keepers and community members to share research, lived experiences and actionable ideas in an effort to decolonize fashion research and the fashion industry.
Panels, lectures and keynotes will explore pre-contact Indigenous clothing and the effects of cultural exchange with European settlers, the role of clothing in colonization, cultural appropriation and resistance, mobilizing cultural resurgence with Indigenous fashion weeks, indigenizing the fashion system, Indigenous fashion activism, and Indigenous queer futurisms.
The symposium will provide a forum to build on the emerging field of Indigenous Fashion, develop networks and chart new research agendas and fashion industry platforms.
Banner Photography by Red Works Photography
* In June 2015 the Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada released its final report detailing the horrific history of church and state-run Indian Residential Schools. “Fashioning Reconciliation” was a response to the TRC's Call to Action to develop culturally appropriate curriculum—a way to honour the past and lived experiences of Residential School Survivors and their families through fashion education. The School of Fashion embarked on a journey to decolonize its curriculum and support Indigenous design because of reconciliation, and we honour this past. However, in recognition of the growing sentiment that Canada is not living up to its reconciliation promises, we are shifting the project’s language to focus on decolonizing fashion and mobilizing Indigenous resurgence.