Wessie Ling

Dr. Wessie Ling is Reader in Fashion Studies at Northumbria University, United Kingdom. In 2018, she is ASEAN Research Fellow at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia (RILCA) at Mahidol University (Bangkok). Her research focuses on Chinese, more recently inter-East Asian and trans-Asian fashion. Her latest book is a co-edited volume on Fashion in Multiple Chinas: Chinese Styles in the Transglobal Landscape (IB Tauris, 2018). Her current research examines the transglobal connection and cultural significance of the China laundry bag intertwining with socio-cultural history, ethnography and fashion studies. In 2018/9, she is a Rita Bolland Fellow at the RCMC for two months.

Together with Daan van Dartel, the Curator of Popular Culture and Fashion, Wessie investigates the ways in which fashion and textile from the distant worlds are narrated, presented and represented. More specifically, she examines the transnational narratives in RCMC collections and how they contribute to the understanding of global fashion. Here, fashion is taken as an interconnecting force of the global, the transnational and the diaspora. The aim is to piece together disparate historical trajectories and at the same time, understand the ethnographic differences under the rubric of glocalisation and post- and de-colonalisation. RCMC collections are taken as cases to achieve an exchange of knowledge and experience. In so doing, a workshop with the museum curators and stakeholders will be conducted to examine the issues arising from (re)presenting, narrating and curating non-western artefact in the ethnographic museum. In addition to it are the delivery of public lectures, documentation of museum collections, publication of articles in our open space and a final public fashion conference to present her research findings. Besides writing, Wessie is a visual artist who understands well the process of making. Her practice deals with the intangible assets of fashion with work exhibited at OVADA in Oxford, Brunei Gallery, SOAS, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum among others.

Projects can be viewed here: www.wessieling.com.

The Rita Bolland Fellowship invites researchers who have projects that explore questions related to the NMVW textile(s) and dress collection.