Interwoven Stories: Gus Casely-Hayford meets Grace Wales Bonner

Exploring creativity, innovation and heritage, in partnership with The Dalmore Highland Single Malt. Together Dr Gus Casely-Hayford and Grace Wales Bonner discuss fashion, craft and design as a means to explore interwoven issues. Reflecting on Grace’s work, they explore cloth as vessel for holding narrative and its potential for sharing complex stories through time, connecting moments and peoples. From its role in resistance, to fashion as a mechanism for restoring links throughout African and diasporic culture and in doing so, building palpable, powerful connections with our pasts.
Dr Gus Casely-Hayford, OBE, Director of V&A East, Professor by Practice (SOAS), is a curator and cultural historian who writes, lectures and broadcasts widely on culture. He was previously the Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art; the most comprehensive collection-based museum and research centre dedicated to African art in the world. 
Grace Wales Bonner launched her eponymous label in 2014. Informed by broad research encompassing critical theory, musical composition, literature, and history, WALES BONNER embraces multiple perspectives, proposing a distinct notion of luxury via a hybrid of European and Afro-Atlantic approaches.
Born in London to an English mother and Jamaican father, Grace Wales Bonner uses fashion to navigate territories of identity, heritage, loss, and cultural complexity. Interested in post-colonial theory, black and post-black literature, her writing and research are intertwined with designing. Find out more: walesbonner.net/
Closing Remarks, Leonie Bell, Director, V&A Dundee
Curated by Nichol Keene, Creative Programmer, V&A Dundee