The Kokrobitey Institute will host its fourth annual textiles workshop from August 16 to 30, bringing an internationally recognised Nigerian designer and master Kente weavers together for two weeks of training built around the theme “What Hands Remember.”
The Accra area institute, founded in 1992 by artist and educator Renée Neblett, has run some version of the workshop each August for several years, shifting focus in past editions from waste driven design to regenerative textiles as its programming evolved alongside growing global interest in sustainable fashion. This year’s edition leads with Bubu Ogisi, founder of the label IAMISIGO, who the workshop credits as an LVMH Prize semi-finalist. Ogisi has drawn wider recognition over the past year beyond that nomination, including winning the 2025 Zalando Visionary Award, which led to a presentation at Copenhagen Fashion Week.
Neblett will lead alongside Esi Otoo, head of the Institute’s design and fashion studio, who runs its Esi Sweater Project. That project turns textile waste into handwoven garments while creating work for local weaving communities, a model that sits close to one of Ghana’s most visible environmental problems. Accra’s Kantamanto market, a major hub for imported secondhand clothing, has become a global symbol of fast fashion’s waste burden, and Kokrobitey’s past workshops have sent participants directly into that market and its surrounding landfills to source material and meet people processing the waste.
The 2026 lineup also includes French designer Soline Charrier and Seyram Agbleze, a Ghanaian textile artist and author who has published work documenting West African textile traditions, alongside practising Kente weavers and other artisans whose knowledge anchors the programme’s practical sessions. Participants will take part in panel discussions, hands on training, live weaving demonstrations and studio work exploring material innovation and circular fashion over the two week run.
The workshop positions itself within a wider continental push to keep African textile traditions economically viable rather than treating them as heritage to simply preserve, an argument Kokrobitey has made consistently since its early workshops began drawing designers, researchers and artisans into the same room.
