Made Visible: Contemporary South African Fashion and Identity

South Africa's legacies of racial violence and oppression wrought by colonialism and apartheid have had lasting reverberations on the postapartheid country. Radical responses to the continued inequities facing previously marginalized sectors of the South African population—including amaXhosa, amaNdebele, and amaZulu communities, women of color, and members of the LGBTQI+ community—have produced compelling images of resistance. Fashion and dress, as outward visual expressions, are powerful signifiers of South African postcolonial identity. Made Visible: Contemporary South African Fashion and Identity, presented by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was a thought-provoking and ambitious exhibition that considered the fashioning of the self through forms of dress and adornment. Curated by Kathryn Gunsch, head of the Arts of Africa and Oceania and Teel Curator of African and Oceanic Art, the exhibition included contemporary South African artists working in fashion, photography, video, and performance that engage with the politics of fashion and dress. Made...