Dressing Resistance

By Jun.-Prof. Dr. Julia Binter

The exhibition Dressing Resistance. Fashion and the Heritage of Mission explores the question of how Christian missionisation has influenced fashion in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean and how fashion designers and artists deal with this legacy today. It builds on an international conference Interwoven Dependencies. Fashion and the Heritage of Mission with academics and cultural practitioners at the Global Heritage Lab and shows artworks by Tuli Mekondjo (Namibia), Cheryl McIntosh (Jamaica/Bonn), Amanda McIntyre (Trinidad and Tobago), Loo Nascimento (Brazil), and many more. The exhibition is hands-on. It invites visitors to weave on a 2×2 metre weaving frame by Peruvian-German artist Sofía Magdits Espinoza or learn how to make Namibian dolls. This brings topics like the body, fashion, and identity to life in a way that is engaging and accessible for both students and families.

Cheryl McIntosh, “Madeleine”, 2021. Photo: Courtesy of the artist.

Dressing Resistance is in dialogue with the exhibition Enmeshed and Entwined – Textures of Dependency by the Cluster of Excellence Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS) and the Bonn Centre for Digital Humanities (BCDH). Enmeshed and Entwined the social entanglements and asymmetrical dependency relationships inherent in one of our oldest cultural assets. At the centre of the exhibition is a large quilt that forms the ‘narrative’ framework for the multi-layered history of the ‘textures of dependence’ in a series of ‘story patches’ from different eras and regions. Using multimedia, visitors learn what textiles – from coarse fabrics to fine silks, from workwear to fashion – tell us about forms of dependency such as enslavement, serfdom, forced labour or contemporary factory work in the Global South. The stations show how textiles were interwoven with social, economic and political hierarchies across eras and regions and what dependencies characterise global trade routes and supply chains then and now.

The exhibitions will open on 15 May 2025 at 6 p.m. with a welcoming address by the Rector of the University of Excellence Bonn, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Michael Hoch, and an artistic performance by Sofía Magdits Espinoza (Peru/Germany).

Opening hours of the exhibitions: 16 May 2025–12 October 2025, Wed-Sun, 2-6 pm, Global Heritage Lab in P26, Poststraße 26, 53111 Bonn

Cover: Tuli Mekondjo, “Saara Omulaule – Black Saara”, 2025. Foto: Yohannes Mekonnen.