Fashion as Catalyst: Making and Advocating for Social Change

At this symposium, we ask: how can we create safe spaces and facilitate participatory fashion practices that foster cultural sustainability and community resilience?

This event is part of the public engagement and cultural programme of the ‘Shifting Narratives’ exhibition delivered within the AHRC-funded project led by Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF), London College of Fashion (LCF), University of the Arts London (UAL), with a wide range of partners. This participatory action research project explores the concepts of cultural sustainability and community resilience through the lived experiences of London-based refugees and asylum seekers. Throughout a reciprocal process of learning and making fashion and textiles, the project team and participants challenged dominant design practice and brought to the forefront the refugees’ shifting identities, cultural heritages, and collective visions for a more equitable and sustainable future.

Through a series of talks, film screening and performance, the event will give an insight on the outcomes of the project, which has created a safe space for participants from different walks of life to meet, learn new skills, and use fashion and textiles to build their new life in the new place of resettlement. Two interactive panels will discuss the power of participatory making practices, the conditions enabling transformative learning experiences, and community efforts to advocate for better outcomes for refugees, in and through fashion.

Come and join us in reflecting on the evolving role of fashion as a vehicle for social change and cultural regeneration, and foregrounding a just transition, especially in light of the current refugee crisis and our collective uncertain future. If you join in person, you will also have the opportunity to enjoy some light refreshments and network with the project team and a diversity of academics, practitioners, refugees, and members of charitable organisations.

The meeting will also be accessible online, and a recording of the event will be shared afterwards. Please select either an 'in-person attendance' or 'online attendance' ticket depending on whether you will be attending this event in person or online.

About Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London:

Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF) is a University of the Arts London (UAL) research, education, and knowledge exchange centre, based at London College of Fashion (LCF). CSF provokes, challenges, and questions the status quo in fashion to contribute to a system that recognises its ecological context and honours equity. The Centre’s work shapes and contributes to Fashion Design for Sustainability as a field of study, industry practices and educational models. By exploring and cross-referencing fashion’s relational ecological, social, economic, and cultural agendas, CSF engages in transformational design practices. CSF takes a pluralistic, systemic approach, collaborating across its network of universities, businesses and other organisations from all around the world.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Barbican Library, Silk Street, London, United Kingdom