Through her personal lens as a mother-researcher, Anna Mamusu Sesay Wehlitz develops an approach to tracing, highlighting, and analyzing the affectivity that emerges through encounters within the setting of the wardrobe.

Engaging with various encounters that took place throughout the research journey, the study illuminates the affective spatiality of the wardrobe. It delves into the dynamics that unfold when researchers immerse themselves in their investigative pursuits, foregrounding the often-overlooked affective dimensions of the wardrobe as research setting. By employing different approaches to storytelling, the dissertation seeks to open new avenues for tracing and highlighting and analyzing the profound affective undercurrents embedded within the wardrobe space and the potential of such an approach to generate new insights into clothing sustainability.

Drawing on a broad theoretical framework rooted in relational ontological approaches and feminist scholarship, the dissertation contributes to the field of wardrobe research in several ways. First, it reconceptualizes the wardrobe space as an open-ended space of possibilities, where stories-so-far are thrown together and emerge through affective intensities. Second, it develops a methodological and analytical framework to trace these stories-so-far and the affectivity they bring about. Third, it advances our understanding of the affective, situational, and relational dynamics that bring ethicality—understood as attachment and care—forth in wardrobe encounters.

Programme

13.00: Welcome / Associate Professor Karen Feder, Kolding School of Design

13.05: Lecture / PhD student Anna-Mamusu Sesay Wehlitz

13.45: Examination / Associate Professor Else Skjold, Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark

14.15: Pause

14.30: Examination / Professor Sophie Woodward, University of Manchester, United Kingdom

15.00: Examination / Associate Professor Morten Krogh Petersen, Kolding School of Design (chairperson)

15.30: Comments from the audience

16.00: Finishing remarks / Associate Professor Karen Feder, Kolding School of Design 

The defence will be followed by a reception.

The dissertation is available for browsing at the library.