A new exhibition celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month will be on display at Queens College starting Sept 25.
The free exhibition, “Quinceañera: Dress and Memory in Latine Culture,” will display 17 dresses and their accessories worn as part of quinceañera celebrations dating back to the 1990s. The public is invited to the opening reception on Thursday, Sept. 25, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Godwin-Ternbach Museum at Queens College, located at 65-30 Kissena Blvd. Free public programs are planned in conjunction with the exhibition, which will run through Thursday, Dec. 18.
The dresses are sourced from members of Queens’ Latin American Community. Additionally, as part of the exhibit, a motion-activated system will play audio from six interviews with various subjects, detailing the significance of the quinceañera tradition in their lives.
The interviews, conducted by the theatre company What Will the Neighbors Say, touch on themes of private life, family and community, tradition, and the significance of quinceañera dresses.
As part of the exhibition, Queens College Fashion and Design Program students hand-made fabric flowers that are displayed throughout the space.
The exhibition was inspired by a student’s assignment as part of “Dress Matters: Contemporary Dress Experiences,” a Queens College Fashion and Design class. The student, Stephanie Giraldo-Deabreu, wrote about her quinceañera dress and celebration for an essay assignment, where the prompt asked students to describe an encounter with an aspect of dress.
Emily Ripley teaches the class and is also a curator and collections manager of the Queens College Fashion and Textiles Collection. Ripley then took inspiration from Girlado-Deabreu’s essay and decided to stage an exhibition celebration of the symbolism of the quinceañera dress and the rituals surrounding the celebration.
