State of Fashion Biennale 2024: Ties that Bind

Curated by Rachel Dedman and Louise Bennetts, State of Fashion 2024 | Ties that Bind brings together creative practices in fashion, textiles and contemporary art from across the Global South. This edition of the Biennale explores the complexities of tradition, the political power of clothing, and alternative approaches to exploitative fashion systems.

At the heart of Ties that Bind is a decentralised structure. The Biennale unfolds across four places: the home site in Arnhem, the Netherlands, and three sister sites in Nairobi, Kenya, Bengaluru, India, and São Paulo, Brazil. In each sister site, an interlocutor-curator – Sunny Dolat, Kallol Datta and Hanayrá Negreiros – has been invited to develop a project that responds to the Biennale’s themes from their perspective, embedded in their local context and community.

Ties that Bind celebrates fashion in an expanded field, through critical creative practices from all over the world. How are artists from the Global South addressing and contesting colonial legacies embedded in clothing and cloth? How are designers evolving inherited traditions, and engaging with the urgencies of our time? Rooted in the universal intimacy of fabric, Ties that Bind seeks to amplify the kinships and connectedness among global practices, and share the powerful human stories woven into what we wear.

The exhibition Ties that Bind can be visited from Wednesday to Sunday from 10:00-17:00 at our main location Rembrandt Theatre. There are also programme parts to visit at Rozet, Museum Arnhem and Plaatsmaken.

Images courtesy of State of Fashion, Arnhem, Netherlands.