Dr. Kristen Laciste

Dr. Kristen Laciste received her MA and PhD in Visual Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and specializes in art and visual culture from West and Central Africa. In her scholarship, she examines African fashion practices and subcultures created or influenced by colonialism during the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly the fashion subculture, the Society of Ambiance Makers and Elegant Persons (La SAPE) in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition, she studies photography in Africa, from its introduction and utilization by Europeans to justify their colonial intervention, to its usage by African artists in the wake of independence to the present, and its circulation in American and European news media.