Black women and their histories are often overlooked and excluded from conventional museums, study collections, and archives. In this talk, Dr. Dyese Matthews explores ways that Black women in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City challenge conventions of documentation and preservation by producing unconventional fashion archives through collecting, making, and wearing clothing. Through a re-imagined fashion archive, Black women assert individual agency and come together as a collective that resists oppression and establishes their important place in the past, present, and future of Harlem.
A proud Chicago native and award-winning researcher, author, and curator, Matthews has a 10+ year academic background in fashion studies. In her research, teaching, curatorial, and community engagement initiatives, Dr. Matthews explores systems of fashion archiving, consumption, production, and distribution through a critical lens, focusing on how fashion is a medium and an embodied practice for liberation and identity expression across the African Diaspora.
