About



Background


The Fashion Professorship at ArtEZ was launched in 2002 as the first professorship in the Netherlands to conduct research and develop theory in the field of fashion. At that point in time, fashion hardly had any international research tradition in academia. To investigate pressing issues in the field of (Dutch) fashion, Professor José Teunissen (2002-2016) initiated several large-scale interdisciplinary research projects.

 

In January 2017 Daniëlle Bruggeman was appointed as Professor of Fashion at ArtEZ to further develop fashion research and theory in the Netherlands. In 2018, Daniëlle Bruggeman gave her inaugural lecture and presented the accompanying publication Dissolving the Ego of Fashion: Engaging with Human Matters. This publication presents the vision and research themes of the Fashion Professorship.

 

In brief 

 

Equitability – Committed to creating more agency and equitability for all living beings.

New Ecologies of Matter – Committed to practicing more care for living (things that) matter.

Critical Fashion Approach – Developing affirmative theories, critical strategies and embodied practices, contributing to a critical fashion discourse.

Living Community – Facilitating interdisciplinary communities of international researchers and practitioners.

Solidary Systems – Redefining value systems to activate post-anthropocentric ethical attitudes for more empathy, solidarity and wellbeing.

 

 

A Critical Fashion Approach

Starting from a critique on the untenable systems at the center of our contemporary neo-liberal, market-driven society and consumer culture, the Fashion Professorship focuses on reflecting on the contemporary fashion industry as the prime example of the socio-cultural, economic and political power structures underlying anthropocentric and capitalist systems.

 

The Fashion Professorship aims to activate and contribute to (1) practicing alternative and solidary systems; (2) creating more agency and equitability through an embodied approach, moving beyond systemic de-humanization; and (3) developing a post-anthropocentric and new materialist approach by re-engaging with all living beings and living (things that) matter.

 

Through art and design-driven research and critical theory, the Professorships focuses on developing alternative approaches, systems, practices, vocabularies and strategies. In doing so, the Professorship aim to contribute to a critical fashion discourse.







Research



Current Themes

Practicing Alternative, Solidary Systems

The Fashion Professorship aims to create and affirm more engaged and critical approaches, systems, vocabularies and strategies, using fashion as a tool for systemic change and transformation. It redefines the value systems that underlie the connection between all living beings and material objects to activate post-anthropocentric ethical attitudes for more empathy, wellbeing and solidarity.


Embodiment and Ethical Subjectivity

The Fashion Professorship aims to move beyond systemic de-humanization, and to contribute to creating more agency and equitability for human beings – and other living beings – in precarious positions. It aims to do more justice to ethical and diverse embodied subjectivities by acknowledging the affective and embodied dimensions of subjectivity.


New Materialism

The Fashion Professorship aims to contribute to creating a different way of engaging with fashion’s matter, materials, and materialities. It considers fashion’s materialities – including the physical matter of experiential and sensuous living bodies – in terms of a continuum of living matter. It aims to practice more care for all living beings and (things that) matter, contributing to healthier, more diverse and balanced ecosystems.





Community



The Fashion Professorship initiates theoretical and practice-based research projects to incubate and develop a body of knowledge, concrete practices and relationships that contribute to transforming fashion’s Ego-system into healthier, more diverse and balanced ecosystems. With an interdisciplinary community, the Professorship researches the underlying changing values and meanings of fashion to collectively affirm critical practices of making, wearing and embodying fashion.

 

From Ego-systems to ecosystems
The Fashion Professorship believes that the realization of the vision can only flourish when it is first and foremost a shared vision that is lived by the community. It is committed to collectively – together with a diverse and interdisciplinary community – developing new insights and knowledge, while making that accessible to foster change across a broader and international community.





Core Team

Daniëlle Bruggeman

Professor of Fashion and cultural theorist.


Hanka van der Voet

Researcher, writer and educator in the field of fashion. 


Femke de Vries

Femke de Vries is an artist, researcher and teacher. Her practice mainly revolves around addressing the dominant industrial and commercial workings of fashion and the exploration of alternatives


Chinouk Filique de Miranda

Chinouk Filique de Miranda is a  design researcher and critical (fashion) practitioner. She analyses, translates and visualises the crossover between the fashion system and digital culture with a focus on introducing digital literacy to fashion.


Michelle Baggerman

Design researcher with a special interest in sustainable textile applications. She also works as an education manager for TextielLab Tilburg.


Lucie Huiskens

Advises the professorship in her role as co-founder and programme coordinator of NL NextFashion & Textiles. 


Dalila Sehovic

Core team assistent 




Advisory Board

Adriana Galijasevic

is a Denim and Sustainability Expert. 


Anneke Smelik

Professor of Visual Culture, department of Cultural Studies, Radboud University in Nijmegen (Netherlands).
www.annekesmelik.nl


Douwe Jan Joustra

Circular Economy specialist.

http://www.ice-amsterdam.nl/ 


Pauline van Dongen

Fashion designer and researcher specialized in wearable technology.

www.paulinevandongen.nl





Contributors

Aurélie Van de Peer, Fashion Theorist with a PhD in Sociology and Philosophy 

Chet Bugter, Head of Programme, MA Critical Fashion Practices

Karmen Samson, Alumna ArtEZ Master Critical Fashion Practices, Generation 27

Marina Sasseron, Alumna ArtEZ Master Critical Fashion Practices, Generation 27

Ruby Hoette, Artist & Researcher

Zinzi de Brouwer, Fashion Narrator & Ethnographic Researcher





Key Partners

ArtEZ Master Critical Fashion Practices

Unique in its kind, the MA Critical Fashion Practices is concerned with fashion’s intangible practices. We examine where fashion lives beyond the cloth – for example in language, networks and spaces – and explore how fashion can play a fuller role in the production of real social, cultural and economic alternatives, moving towards a more honest and equitable reality for everyone involved. We ask ourselves: What kind of language is needed?, How should we organize ourselves?, What kind of networks can we embody?, What spaces can we occupy? To explore these questions, we make use of a variety of strategies, among them: intuition, (creative) writing, publishing, intervention, activism, reading groups, colloquia, exhibition-making, performance, film-making, podcasting, vlogging. Central to these explorations is the concept of interdisciplinarity and the autonomy of the student in relation to the larger community he/she is part of. This translates into a project-based curriculum, which means – specifically in the first year – students work collaboratively on a group project under the supervision of a tutor. Within the context of these projects, students are facilitated in formulating, exploring and refining their own research objectives. Through this project-based approach we create an immersive learning experience that relates closely to challenges within the current field of fashion. This immersive learning experience is facilitated through our learning community, consisting of our students, tutors, guest tutors, professors, Centre of Expertise, other ArtEZ MA programmes and professionals from the field of fashion and design.

https://www.artez.nl/en/courses/master/critical-fashion-practices






Partners





Colophon

Editor Daniëlle Bruggeman

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