Colonial Impacts on Material Cultures of the Africa Diaspora

Conversations in Creativity

With Cheyney McKnight, Elli Michaela Young & host, Teleica Kirkland.
“The story of migration is not one story but millions of stories… there’s more than one way to tell a story.”

Tartan: Its Journey through the African Diaspora was the first major project conceived by Teleica Kirkland, for Costume Institute of the African Diaspora (CIAD). The project explored the emergence of tartans in Kenya in the form of shukas; the blankets worn by the Maasai Mara and discovered the relationship to tartan that has developed amongst the Zulu’s in South Africa.

“The history of a people can be told through their material culture. Through my work, I endeavour to redress the balance of untold histories”

Teleica Kirkland leads this Cloth Connections discussion with Cheyney McKnight, founder of Not Your Momma’s History who acts as an interpreter advocate for interpreters of colour via the art of creative re-enactments, using her clothing and primary sources to make connections between past and present, and Elli Michaela Young, currently completing her PhD on the Jamaican Fashion Guild exploring the use of West Indian Sea Island Cotton and its links to the North of England.

This session was recorded in October 2021, as part of the British Textile Biennial.

For more information about the speakers in this session, please follow this link.

This event was part of the Conversations in Creativity series in collaboration with Creative Lancashire.