Charlene Prempeh’s exhibition puts fashion alongside furniture, architecture and sculpture, bringing more than 100 objects together in Kensington.
The Design Museum opened The Nue Black Aesthetic on Friday, bringing together 16 contemporary Black designers working across several disciplines. Guest curator Charlene Prempeh has organised more than 100 objects across six sections, with clothing, lighting, sculpture and furniture in the same exhibition.
The title draws on the Black Aesthetic movements of the 1960s and 1980s. The museum describes its use of ‘Nue’ as an invitation to consider the differences among contemporary practices, including how designers working in diasporic communities draw on particular places and traditions.
Fashion sits alongside the objects people live with
The exhibition includes work by menswear designer Bianca Saunders, Feben and Diotima’s Rachel Scott. The museum’s installation photographs show work by Scott’s label alongside Samuel Ross’s, and place pieces by Foday Dumbuya’s LABRUM and Feben near work by designer Andu Masebo.
That arrangement puts clothes in conversation with the objects and spaces people use every day. A visitor can look at how a garment takes shape around the body, then turn to how the form of a chair changes the way someone sits or how a light changes a room. Materials and their construction offer a thread through those encounters.
Furniture and sculpture widen the view
Mac Collins’s Open Code and Giles Tettey Nartey’s Strange Notes are among the works highlighted in coverage of the show. The museum also features installation views of work by Nifemi Marcus-Bello and Ini Archibong. They bring distinct approaches to objects and interiors into a show in which the fashion names may be the first point of recognition for some visitors.
The exhibition’s emphasis on different practices carries through to its public programme. Prempeh is due to join Collins and Nartey on 10 November for a discussion on memory, materials, ritual and diaspora, chaired by co-curator Tiya Dahyabhai. A curator-led tour follows on 13 November.
The exhibition runs through next summer
The show is at the Design Museum on Kensington High Street until 8 August 2027. Its programme includes a fashion life-drawing session with Feben on 23 November. The museum also lists relaxed opening sessions for March, with tactile materials and sensory maps available.
Putting a fashion drawing session, a material culture discussion and a long-running exhibition on the same programme gives visitors several ways to engage with the work. In the galleries themselves, the opportunity is more direct. Visitors can spend time with the individual objects and see how each designer’s choices differ from those of the person whose work is displayed nearby.
Sources
Design Museum — exhibition, installation photographs and events
