Organisation: Institute of Contemporary History - FCSH/NOVA; Centro de investigação em Arquitectura, Urbanismo e Design - FAUL
Venue: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon
Date: 15 May 2017
Deadline for proposals: 29 March 2017



Keynote speakers (TBC):

DONATELLA BARBIERI - Lecturer and PhD supervisor, founder of the MA Costume Design for Performance, London College of Fashion - University of the Arts London, UK.

ULRICH LEHMANN - Associate Professor in Interdisciplinary Design and Arts,The New School, New York, USA.



The recent rise of the blockbuster fashion exhibition has underpinned a renewed interest in the topic of garment curation and preservation, encouraging academics from emerging disciplines, such as museum studies and fashion studies, as well as established institutions, to re-evaluate the presence of fashion in the museum. This increasing institutional and curatorial interest has led to a new research dynamics centered around the museum as an agency that can broaden and deepen our understanding of fashion.

New museological approaches tend to use fashion to increase institutional appeal, by focusing on strategies that prompt new understandings of the history of apparel and a critical approach towards its presence in museums, and to reflect an institutional desire to contextualise and integrate fashion into specific social and economic historical circumstances.

This symposium will focus on the challenges, possibilities and multidisciplinary aspects involved in the exhibition of fashion in a museological and curatorial context. We welcome proposals for papers and presentations that explore the following themes from diverse perspectives and approaches, by researchers and practitioners, as well as by practice-based researchers.



Submissions may focus on, but are not limited to, the following topics:

The relationship between the museum, time and the public display of fashion
The garment as a museum object, but also as an emotional and narrative medium
What do we preserve and why do we do it when we bring garments into the museum?
The relationship between the written word and the displaying of fashion, including catalogues and accompanying books
The convergence of artefact-based research and theoretical approaches
Interdisciplinary good practice in displaying/exhibiting
The use of oral history in museum research and displaying
The imagined public. To whom is fashion curation addressed?
How can fashion engage visitors and on what levels?
Fashion and the ideology of the moment
From 'stage' to museum: the aura of a garment
Fashion and the gaze of the other
The image archive: fashion in pictures, paintings and films



Scholars and researchers from all related academic and practice-based fields and are invited to submit proposals.
The conference will be held in English.
We invite researchers and practitioners to send us their proposals by Wednesday 29 March 2017.
Participants will be notified by Tuesday 4 April 2017.

Presenters wishing to submit a proposal for a paper presentation of 20 minutes (max.) are required to provide their name, email address, the title of the paper, an abstract (300-350 words), 5 key bibliographical references, 5 keywords and a short biography (100-150 words) to the following email: museum.fashion.politics@gmail.com



Fee (participants): Regular: €30 / Student: €15



Conference Committee:

Fernando Moreira da Silva (CIAUD, Faculdade de Arquitectura, Universidade de Lisboa)
Anabela Becho (CIAUD, Faculdade de Arquitectura, Universidade de Lisboa)
Giulia Bonali (Birkbeck College, University of London; Instituto de História Contemporânea)
Érica Faleiro Rodrigues (Birkbeck College, University of London)