Introducing our Session 5a speaker for the Pan-African Fashion Policy Fellowship
Dr. Erica de Greef
HOD, Curatorial Public and Visual Cultures, Wits School of Arts and Co-Founder African Fashion Research Institute
Topic: Cultural Heritage & Fashion Preservation
In this session, we’ll explore the role of cultural heritage in shaping Africa’s fashion ecosystem, and how preservation efforts can drive authenticity, sustainability, and long-term value across the industry. From indigenous textiles and traditional craftsmanship to storytelling and intellectual property protection, the conversation will unpack how heritage can be safeguarded while remaining relevant in a modern, global market.
We’ll also examine how intentional preservation strategies, documentation, and cross-generational knowledge transfer can support innovation, strengthen identity, and position African fashion as a powerful expression of culture on the global stage.
📅 7th May 2026
⏰️ 5PM WAT
#fashionlawinstituteafrica #fashionlawinstitute #panafricanfashionpolicyfellowship #PAFALAPS2026 #fashionlawinafrica
In preparation for Fashion_The Image, the Roger Ballen Centre for Photography partnered with the African Fashion Research Institute to shape the exhibition’s identity through a critical discourse. This curatorial collaboration included writer, curator and AFRI co-founder Dr Erica de Greef, a core researcher and co-curator of the exhibitions Koto Bolofo retrospective.
In her essay "Fashion Images Matter," she argues that fashion imagery is never neutral, as it carries histories, power, and perspective that shape how identity and culture are understood. She calls for more critical, locally grounded readings and new visual languages that reflect lived realities.
Read the blog to explore why fashion images matter, and what is at stake in how they are made, seen and remembered.
Link in Bio
Beauty is a method, writes Christina Sharpe. Observing the last three decades, African fashion photographers has been pivotal in fashioning new visual landscapes. They portray excellence, offer hope, and rewrite histories. My work with AFRI continues to bring into view these South African fashion narratives. This time in collaboration with Wanted for the pioneering exhibition, Fashion_The Image.
Writer Ayabukwa Magocoba and I had the pleasure of working closely with the godfather of South African fashion photography, Lesotho-born Koto Bolofo for his first-ever retrospective in South Africa. Koto's images join those of more that thirty other South African photographers in an exhibition that is simuktaneously gritty and joyous.
Fashion_The Image opened at the Roger Balllen Centre for Photography in Johannesburg this week and rums through to the end of May 2026. There will be walkabouts and talks throughout.
Spent a wonderful afternoon with one of my dearest friends @witsartmuseum_wam + @wits__university + @44_stanleyavenue . A twenty-six year friendship that started at LISOF when Erica was a first-year lecturer. Now, an academic tour de force as Director @afri_digital and Head of Department @wits_school_of_arts_wsoa . You are a true inspiration my friend. My admiration and love is yours ♡
BEHIND-THE-PATTERN Series
Behind-the-Pattern is AFRI’s new conversational archive tracing the ideas, memory-work and experiments that shaped New Patterns. Produced by Siviwe James within the New Patterns project, the series brings reflective, behind-the-scenes dialogue into the public archive.
Across three episodes, members of the AFRI community return to the workshops, field notes and lived histories that seeded the project’s methodology.
Episode 1: Scott Williams & Dr Erica de Greef
In this opening dialogue, Scott and Erica revisit the conceptual beginnings of New Patterns — from early non-formal pedagogy experiments to the fieldwork sites that shaped the curriculum’s DNA.
They trace how Daveyton’s style genealogies, Mapungubwe’s fragment histories and Durban’s barkcloth cosmologies shifted the project from documentation toward a living curriculum rooted in African experience.
Premiers Friday 12 December at 12pm on YouTube.
Set a reminder, subscribe, and step into the archive with us.
🔗 Link in bio
New Patterns — Closing the Fold is supported by the National Arts Council and presented by the African Fashion Research Institute.
#NewPatterns #BehindThePattern #DecolonialFashion #AFRIDigital #FashionArchivesAfrica
New Patterns with the African Gashion Research Institute. Amazing collaborators in a project that started in 2023 ... keeps giving, keeps growing. More details loading soon ....
You’re invited to the musician, performer, inventor and community builder Dr Thokozani Mhlambi’s performance lecture at the Chris Seabrooke Music Hall at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg on Friday 17 October 2025 from 12h00 to 13h30. Mhlambi will be joined on viola by Lynn Daphne Rudolph @daphne.zar
Mhlambi’s innovative work Playing John Knox Bokwe Today presents an intellectual sketch of Bokwe who inaugurated the art of putting words to music in African language. Using the conventions of music notation, Bokwe is considered the father of African modern composition.
Based on ongoing research on early African intellectuals as composers of music, and playing on a custom-designed, handmade Baroque cello with gut strings, Mhlambi will share a musical rendition and the launch of the music video Plea for Africa, composed by Bokwe and recorded by Dr Mhlambi (feat. Lonwabo Mafani).
Dr Shadrack Bokaba from the Wits School of Arts will introduce the artist and convene a short Q&A with the artist.
The music video was made possible with the collaborative support of the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Cape Town and Afropolitan Explosiv.
#afrofutures
#JohnKnoxBokweTour
#localmeetsglobal
#yithilabo
Delighted to show The Founders Pillars in South Africa this weekend as part of the Fakugesi Festival @fakugesi . A site responsive augmented reality activation, The Founders Pillars is showing at the WITS Great Hall, University of Witwatersrand @witsschoolofarts@wits__university on Friday the 10 October at 14h15 and 15h00 and Saturday the 11 October at 12h15. Join me for a walkabout if you are in Johannesburg this weekend! There will be a shuttle leaving Tshimologong Fakugesi Festival or join us at site directly-remember to bring your ID to enter the university. Made in collaboration with @simonwoodfilm and @souvenirs_of_conflict and with support from @afri_digital . Project incubated at the amazing @opendoclab and showing in Johannesburg with the generous support from Heinrich Boll Stiftung Cape Town @boellstiftung . Big appreciation for @ericadegreef for engaging the university and students at WITS to experience the work and engage in discussions. Thanks to @luke_hero_draper for helping adapt the AR at WITS
Alison Moloney, Wanda Lephoto and Dr Erica de Greef discuss the photograph which opened Fashion Accounts in Museum Africa which reimagines histories of Black South African youth that were either not documented or were destroyed by the apartheid police. @wandalephoto is a Johannesburg-based designer whose work negotiates the boundaries of culture and shared histories. @ericadegreef is the co-founder of the African Fashion Research Institute and a lecturer at WITS School of Art @visualcultureswits Together with Alison the three co-curated Fashion Accounts which explores archival practices through dress.
This conversation is the latest in the Object No.1 series in which Alison interviews curators about the first exhibit audiences encounter at the start of an exhibition. Through a close reading of this initial object, the curators discuss the theme of the show and how the work was selected. Like the opening sentence of a book, the first object sets the scene for the narrative to unfold. The series is supported by @cffc_ual@lcflondon_ where @amoloney_ is an Associate Member. The podcast is produced by @clarelynchred
Fashion Accounts in Museum Africa is open until 28 September 2025 at Museum Africa, Newtown, Johannesburg.
Installation photography @simphiwestixmajozi
#linkinbio to Object No.1 podcast
#objectno1 #objectno1podcast #fashionpodcasts #fashionexhibitions #exhibitingfashion
