Launch Event

Connecting Threads: Fashioning Madras in India and the Caribbean is a public symposium that launched the Connecting Threads project website.

Full recordings of the Connecting Threads launch event and public symposium is available below:

If you cannot access the full playlist above, please access using all the session using this link.

Session 1 introduces the Connecting Threads project and its core team members.

This project is led by faculty at University of Edinburgh UK) and George Mason University (USA). Our main partner institution is the Victoria & Albert Museum. The symposium was held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London on October 11, 2024. It is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council.

Session 2: Textile Histories in India and the Caribbean

Dr Karuna Dietrich Wielenga, Professor of History, Azim Premji University
Dr Steeve Buckridge, Professor of African and Caribbean History, Material Culture and Fashion Studies, Grand Valley State University

Session 3: Madras and its Histories

Uthra Rajagopal, Independent scholar and curator
Dr Jonathan Square, Assistant Professor of Black Visual Culture, Parsons School of Design

Session 4: Object study session with a group of 19th century Madras Handkerchiefs

Ulaganathan Sundaram, Master handloom weaver, Kalakshetra Foundation
Mohana Kannan, Textile Designer, Majja

Session 5: Lungi wrapping demonstration

Session 6: Object study session with a group of 18th century Grenadian dolls

Suelin Low Chew Tung, Visual Artist, Co-Founder and Artistic Director at Sans Souci Arts Studio

Session 7: Madras headwrap demonstration

Regal (Giana Abreu-Christopher), Founder and CEO of Designs by Regal

Session 8: ‘Madras Futures’ Panel Discussion

Teleica Kirkland (Moderator), Lecturer in Cultural and Historical Studies, London College of Fashion, Founder and Creative Director of the Costume of the African Diaspora (CIAD)
Sonja Dumas, Creative, Founder and Director of ‘Mapping the Madras’ project
Kavita Parmar, Designer, Founder and Creative Director of the ‘IOU Project’
Regal (Giana Abreu-Christopher), Founder and CEO of Designs by Regal
Prasan Shah, Co-Founder, Original Madras Trading Company

Session 9: Keynote Lecture

Carol Tulloch, Professor of Dress, Diaspora and Transnationalism, University of the Arts London