Special Exhibition – Claiming Inspiration: Artisans, Culture, and Commercialisation

A new special exhibition highlighting the problem of designers “claiming inspiration” from ethnic artisans opens to the public at the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre on Tuesday, 26 September 2023.

In 2019, traditional designs of the Oma ethnic group in Laos were misappropriated by an international fashion brand, a practice becoming common worldwide. International law and public opinion are ambiguous about rights to traditional creative works that are shared by a community and culture. In this thought-provoking exhibition, we highlight this issue and how truly global it is, with displays of traditional clothing from Kenya, Romania, Mexico and others that have been copied by fashion designers. The exhibit will also display examples of ethical inspiration and collaboration, showing how heritage can be sustained for traditional communities and future generations.

Learn more about this issue on our resource page.