ABOUT

Photographer: Radcliffe Roye

"This is a story about a project -- not just any project, but a skirt project. And these skirts are not ordinary skirts: They are political fabrics woven together by history, tradition and culture.
- C. Zawadi Morris for AOL's Bed-Stuy Patch news site. Click here for full article and photos.

About the exhibit:

On President’s Day 2011, performance artist Aisha Cousins teamed up with award winning printmaker Shani Peters, and fashion designer Harriet’s by Hekima to hold the first Black Presidents' Day Exhibit. The exhibit was designed to make the Story Skirt Project accessible to black women who wanted to use it to tell their stories. The trio produced an exhibit on the history of African political fabrics and a limited edition of Story Skirts made from hand printed Obama fabric. The 2012 Black Presidents’ Day Exhibit continues this tradition with a  new exhibit -featuring portraits of nearly a dozen Story Skirters by Andrew Beard,  Malik Yusef CumboJa'Tovia Gary,  and  Nasilele Holland , info on how to do the project, +  a new series of 44 limited edition Story Skirts by  Shani Peters and Haby’s Fashions.

The Story Skirt Project was initiated by artist, Aisha Cousins. In 2009, Cousins began collecting African political fabrics that had been printed to commemorate the U.S.' first black president. She found Obama fabrics from Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Kenya (by way of Tanzania), & South Africa. She then asked local black designers -many first generation African immigrants-, to sew them into skirts or other clothes. Cousins wore these African Obama fabric clothes everyday, for one year of Obama's presidency, in her predominantly black neighborhood, BedStuy. She then vowed to pass the skirts and their stories onto future generations of women in her family. By doing this, Cousins aimed to document what life was like for black women from U.S. families while the U.S.' first black president was in office.


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