“Fashioning the Bounds of Free Speech” explores fashion and art as forms of symbolic speech and expressive conduct that shape the limits and possibilities of freedom of expression in the United States.

How have clothing, accessories, artworks and appearances become constitutionally protected forms of free speech in the United States?  What circumstances, conditions, and criteria are needed to determine what is legally safeguarded as symbolic speech and expressive conduct? How has the Cornell community, both past and present, used fashion to push boundaries, make change, and express ideologies and identities? Fashioning the Bounds of Free Speech grapples with these questions and explores the bleeding edge of the indispensable condition of academic freedom, individual expression, collective action, and democratic aspirations through art practice, embodied aesthetics, and regulatory forces at play.

This exhibit includes works from the Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art’s permanent collection and will be on display in the Human Ecology Building, at 37 Forest Home Drive, Ithaca, NY 14853.

A concurrent installation is on view in the newly renovated Richard Sukenik ’59 Teaching Gallery, a space dedicated to interdisciplinary teaching and learning with the Johnson Museum’s permanent collection.