Do You Know the History of Cotton? Artist Nikesha Breeze on Honouring her Ancestors and the Story of Colonial Cotton

This week, I bring you an interview with the fascinating artist Nikesha Breeze. Their Living Histories project explores African diasporic stories, and was a standout at this year's Biennale of Sydney. The fashion connection? Cotton's colonial history.

Maybe you (rightly) love cotton as a beautiful, breathable natural fibre, and routinely choose it over synthetics. Me too! But how much do you know know about the commodity's troubling history, and its links with slavery in the US? The textiles that we wear never exist in isolation, and it's the human stories that unlock meaning.

Also up for discussion: art's role in catalysing change; self-care; the healing powers of sound; capitalism and the commodification of time; our relationship to place, land and each other; how corporations profit from the prison industrial complex - and even make clothing using prison labour.

Recorded in person at the 25th Biennale of Sydney.

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Tell us what you think. Find Clare on Instagram @mrspress Follow Nikesha @nikeshabreeze

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