Wessie Ling

University of Northumbria

Dr Wessie Ling is a trained cultural historian and artist who uses academic writing and visual art practice to address her work. The discourse of cultural identities in the production of fashion and cultural property of fashion are common themes in her work. Author of Fusionable Cheongsam (2007), she has written widely on the socio-cultural revolution of the Chinese dress through which dissected the material culture in China. She is Co-Investigator of the AHRC project, Translating and Writing Modern Design Histories in East Asia for the Global World (2012-4). Current projects include an edited volume on Making Fashion in Multiple Chinas: Chinese Styles in the Transglobal Landscape (IB Tauris) and a guest issue on Hyper-Text)(ile)s: Transnational Networks in Fashion Exchange in Textile The Journal of Cloth and Cultures. A Reader in Fashion at Northumbria University and a practicing visual artist, she uses text, audio and installations to address the soft power of fashion. Works were exhibited in OVADA (2015, UK: Oxford), Danson House (2013, UK: Bexleyheath), Brunei Gallery (2012, London: SOAS), Saltram House (2012, Plymouth: National Trust), Victoria & Albert Museum (2011, London) among others. www.WESSIELING.com

Abstract

Making cultural identity in Red-White-Blue

What cultural constructions have come to mean and how they are experienced, crossed or imagined are products of particular histories, times and places. This talk concerns how textile has been employed as an agent of (re)production and (re)construction of a ‘place’ or locality and cultural identity in the creative industry. It discusses the role a transnational textile plays in a broken society by focusing on the indigenisation of the Red-White-Blue, a polyethylene material commonly associated with China but encompassing inter-regional production and displaying a global presence. Questions arising include transnational interaction, authenticity, identity and its relation to hybridity, cultural production and consumption.