I didn’t know about the Religion and Belief Champions Forum, yet I use the quiet space at CSM to meditate on hectic days or before exciting events (which is often!). Ten minutes is all I need to recentre, and it always astonishes me the power of that pause. I have recommended it to anxious students who would come to me for Academic Support, although I am unsure how many have used it. In fact, I don’t know of anyone else that uses it. I’m now intrigued to find out more.

Religion, Belief and Faith are subjects that I am particularly interested, especially in its relationship with fashion. Brazil is a deeply religious nation with a spectrum of religions, including hybrid ones. I’m indeed fascinated by different belief systems, their similarities and how they are reflected in material culture.

While working at the British Museum, I conducted extensive research on the Kirchenpelz, a coat associated with the religious identity of a Saxon community in Transylvania. This research informed the exhibition Living With Gods: Peoples, Places and Worlds Beyond (2017-2018). It was interesting to learn how their faith was an integral aspect of their shared identity and links to their Heimat (homeland).

I have noticed a similar fascination by the students when teaching Global Perspectives, a second year Fashion History and Theory module that explores fashions beyond the Global North. Every year, at least a couple of groups (this is a group project) focuses on dresses associated with religious identities. It seems the students, especially White Europeans, feel more confident exploring faith rather than race, although in many instances both cannot be dissociated from one another. This year, we also had a student who wrote her excellent dissertation on the figure of Delilah on popular culture, following three years of doing projects associated with her Jewish identity.

Going back to UAL Religion and Belief Champions Forum, how can I integrate them into my teaching? How many of my students already engage with them and how many, like me, don’t know about them? A simple option would be to include the group to Unit One, which is a unit that I oversee involving all BA Fashion and BA Fashion Communication first years, as an intro to life at CSM. As part of the unit, they have a series of talks with different departments such as Library, Academic Support, Disability Services, Technical Services. But that would be only an introduction, it would be important to have perhaps a collaborative project with the group, so these themes are critically considered in the student’s practices.