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Redefining beauty

,
Past
  • Free
  • Discussion
  • Hearing loop
  • British Sign Language (online)
Headshot of Funmi Fetto who is smiling and wearing a denim shirt.
Funmi Fetto. © Photo by Lewis Hayward.

A recording of the event 'Redefining beauty', which happened at Wellcome Collection on 29 October 2023.

Watch the recording of a conversation hosted by leading fashion and beauty journalist Funmi Fetto, alongside international artists and writers, about shifting beauty ideals.

Speakers include bestselling author, academic and broadcaster Emma Dabiri and artists Narcissister, Jennifer Ling Datchuk and Ebony Rose Dark.

We’ll be looking at the wider cultural, social and historical context, with speakers exploring their relationship to beauty in their creative practices.

Following the event, Emma Dabiri will be signing copies of her new book ‘Disobedient Bodies: Reclaim Your Unruly Beauty‘, published to accompany ‘The Cult of Beauty exhibition. 

Dates

,
Past

Need to know

Location

We’ll be in the Henry Wellcome Auditorium. To get there, take the stairs or the lift down to level −1. The auditorium is fitted with a hearing loop.

Place not guaranteed

Booking a ticket for a free event does not guarantee you a place. You should aim to arrive 15 minutes before the event is scheduled to start to claim your place. If you do not arrive on time, your place may be given to someone on the waiting list.

Waiting list

If this event is fully booked, you may still be able to attend. We will operate a waiting list, which opens 30 minutes before this event starts. Arrive early, and we’ll give you a numbered ticket. If there are any unfilled places just before the start time, we will invite you to enter in order of ticket number.

Hearing loop

There will be a hearing loop at this event.

British Sign Language (online)

This event is British Sign Language interpreted. An interpreter will be embedded in the event livestream or visible on screen for online viewers.

For more information, please visit our Accessibility page. If you have any queries about accessibility, please email us at access@wellcomecollection.org or call 0 2 0. 7 6 1 1. 2 2 2 2

Our event terms and conditions

About your speakers

Headshot of Funmi Fetto

Funmi Fetto

Funmi Fetto, a former Acting Beauty Director of British Vogue, is now Contributing Editor at British Vogue and Beauty Columnist/Beauty Director at the Observer Magazine.

Photograph of Emma Dabiri

Emma Dabiri

Emma Dabiri is an Irish-Nigerian academic, activist and broadcaster. She spent over a decade as a teaching fellow in the African department at SOAS. She is a final-year Visual Sociology PhD researcher at Goldsmiths, and author of the Sunday Times bestseller ‘What White People Can Do Next’ and ‘Don’t Touch My Hair’. In 2023 she was appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She has presented several television and radio programmes, including BBC Radio 4’s critically acclaimed documentaries ‘Journeys into Afro-Futurism’ and ‘Britain’s Lost Masterpieces’, and ‘Hair Power’ for Channel 4, which won a Cannes Silver Lion award. She is a Contributing Editor at Elle and runs the Instagram account Disobedient Bodies.

Photo of Narcissister

Narcissister

Narcissister is a Brooklyn-based artist and performer. Wearing mask and merkin, she works at the intersection of contemporary dance, visual art and activism. She actively integrates her prior experience as a professional dancer and commercial artist with her art practice in a range of media including live performance, collage, sculpture, video, film and experimental music.

Headshot of Jennifer Ling Datchuk

Jennifer Ling Datchuk

Jennifer Ling Datchuk is an artist born in Warren, Ohio and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Her work is an exploration of her layered identity – as a woman, a Chinese woman, as an ‘American’, as a third culture kid. Trained in ceramics, Datchuk works with porcelain and other materials often associated with traditional women’s work, such as textiles and hair. Through these materials, she explores how Western beauty standards influenced the East, how the non-white body is commodified and sold, and how women’s – globally, girls’ – work is still a major economic driver whose workers still struggle for equality.

Ebony Rose Dark

Ebony Rose Dark

Ebony Rose Dark is your VIP/Visually Impaired Cabaret and Dance Performance Artist whose works explore topics such as disability, race and gender through movement, song, lip sync, mime and audience banter.