Native/American Fashion: Inspiration, Appropriation and Cultural Identity - Closing Remarks

Summary: Native/American Fashion: Inspiration, Appropriation, and Cultural Identity explores fashion as a creative endeavor and an expression of cultural identity, the history of Native fashion, issues of problematic cultural appropriation in the field, and examples of creative collaborations and best practices between Native designers and fashion brands. In this Karen Kramer of Peabody Essex Museum gives some closing remarks. Karen Kramer, curator of Native American and Oceanic Art and Culture at the Peabody Essex Museum, has helped produce ten major exhibitions on Native American art and culture at the museum. She curated Native Fashion Now, a nationally traveling, groundbreaking exhibition celebrating contemporary Native American fashion, and the paradigm-shifting Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art, which dismantled stereotypes and explored concepts of change, worldview, and politics in historical and contemporary Native art. Kramer directs the Peabody Essex Museum’s innovative Native American Fellowship program, which provides training for rising Native American leaders in the museum, cultural, and academic sectors.