Diaspora Wonderland. Fashioning worlds

Das sagt der/die Veranstalter:in:

What if fashion were a cultural seismograph, capable of anticipating transformations in identity, gender, sensuality and imagination? Dressing would then become an instinctive gesture: a way of sensing the present, preparing for what lies ahead and daring to inhabit one’s existence.  

Today, fashion has become a space where multiple artistic practices converge: textiles, photography, music, film, installation and performance. Because it carries with it a form of creative freedom, many artists engage this sphere to tell the world who they are.  

Diaspora Wonderland highlights a generation of artists from Afro-Mediterranean diasporas who explore their narratives through fashion. The works presented share a common ground: the stories of countries left behind, family intimacy, the traces of exile, inherited know-how and the images that arise from fragmented memories.   

The term diaspora, derived from the Greek speiro “to sow”, evokes far more than dispersion. It speaks of bonds, attachments, wounds, but also of creation. Between lived reality and imagined territories, “wonderlands” emerge: spaces of creation shaped by movement, transmission and reinvention.  

Bringing together newly commissioned works by Buki Akomolafe, Sophia Kacimi and NIX, alongside existing works by Margaux Derhy and Sarah Makharine, the exhibition invites a sensitive journey through imagined territories, creating a ”wonderland” that extends beyond real borders.  

The journey begins in Berlin, a city marked by reunification and experimentation. Here, fashion can once again become what it is at its core: a hybrid field where stories interweave and open other ways of existing in the world. 

Curator: Lotfi Aoulad
Artists: Buki Akomolafe, Margaux Derhy, Sophia Kacimi, Sarah Makharine, NIX
Scenographer: Christophe Martin

Location IFA Galerie, Berlin