AestheSis ≱ AesThetic Workshop
Wei-Chi Su Nov. 2021

Nowadays, most colonial countries have nominally become independent but they are still in the hands of the West. The dominators not only control the economy, politics, and knowledge but also control the senses and perception. The aesthetic we perceive in our daily life is Eurocentric and a vehicle that colonised all the senses. It enabled the rejection of other forms of lived experience, our aesthesis for sensing and perceiving. Moreover, in the process of decolonising fashion, the domination of modern aesthetics has also limited our ability to design outside the Western normative framework.

Inspired by Decolonial AestheSis: Colonial Wounds/Decolonial Healings – Social Text By Walter Mignolo and Rolando Vazquez, the purpose of this workshop is to provide people, especially fashion students an experience to reconnect their senses and offer an option to decentralise their aesthesis from the Western norm.

Besides, returning to and focusing on our own sensation will also allow people to see that our individual identities are much more than our nations and cultures. Our identities were built up little by little, by every unique experience in our lives.

The sign ≱ is chosen because the aim of this workshop is not to establish a new standard for the world but simply to raise consciousness of the aesthesis(senses), cultures, ways of living, and our relationship to the world that have been silenced. As Audre Lorde said, “Difference is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged.” The recognition of differences will give us tools to confront the classification and ranking of people and regions which are the cornerstone of colonialism. Seeing differences is also to see no one and nothing as on a higher level of anyone and anything.

SCHEDULE

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