Welcome to the 2026 edition of Fashion Research Symposium, Friday 20th of March! The symposium is an annual event for research, knowledge-sharing and critical discourse around fashion. The theme for 2026 is “The Body, Exhibited”. Fashion Research Symposium is an ongoing collaboration between the National Museum of Norway and International Library of Fashion Research.

This year’s edition of Fashion Research Symposium returns to an ever present topic, namely the representation of the body in fashion exhibitions. As the late Japanese designer Issey Miyake famously once said about his work, “My design is not for philosophy, it’s for life”, and perhaps this connection between fashion, dress and the living is the most central and difficult thing that continues to haunt fashion and dress curators alike.

Fashion Research Symposium 2026 connects to disciplinary discussions in light of our time's so-called neo-physical turn. To extend on this theme, we have invited a plethora of Norwegian and international speakers, ranging from curators, fashion historians and practitioners, who have worked on niche to blockbuster exhibitions, museum to gallery shows, and anything in between and beyond. How have curatorial practices traditionally grappled with the body and its various forms of presence and absence? And what does this mean in our contemporary times?

Speakers include Anne Karine Thorbjørnsen, Anne Zhou, Anne-Sofie Hjemdahl, Anneke Smelik, Bob Verhelst, Cecilie Skeide, Harold Koda, Judith Clark, Lena van de Poel, Marlies Wirth, Marlène Van de Casteele, Matthew Linde, Shanu Walpita and Vassilis Zidianakis.

Get your tickets HERE!