Victoria (Vicki) Rovine is Professor of Art History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Director of Carolina Public Humanities, the public outreach arm of the College of Arts and Sciences. She studied art and art history as an undergraduate at Grinnell College, then spent a year at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History as a museum educator. While there, she first encountered African art and went on to graduate study in African art history at Indiana University, where she earned her MA and PhD. Before coming to UNC, she was a curator at the University of Iowa and a faculty member at the University of Florida. She served two terms on the Carrboro Arts Committee.

Vicki’s research is focused on African textiles and dress practices. She has conducted research in Mali on weaving, dyeing, and embroidery since the early 1990s, and more recently she has researched clothing and textile design in Senegal, Niger, France, and South Africa. Her book Bogolan: Shaping Culture through Cloth in Contemporary Mali focused on a textile from Mali that has been transformed by artists and entrepreneurs in contemporary West Africa. Her 2015 book African Fashion, Global Style: Histories, Innovations, and Ideas You Can Wear explores the work of African fashion designers from across the continent, and it addresses the image of Africa in Western fashion design. She is writing a book on the French colonial era in West Africa, addressing the roles of cotton, cloth, and clothing in the interactions between African communities and the French colonial system that sought to transform the colonies’ economies and cultures. Throughout her career, her research has highlighted the changing meanings of tradition for African artists and communities, where textiles and dress styles associated with tradition fuel constant innovations. She has also explored how Western designation of African people and cultures as traditional distorts and misrepresents them, creating an imagined Africa with profound implications for our understanding of this immense, diverse, and innovative continent.

Before taking up her position at Carolina Public Humanities, Vicki was Director of UNC’s African Studies Center, where she created public programs on Africa and pursued linkages with African institutions, including the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Senegal. She also organized yearly graduate symposia and facilitated faculty-organized symposia. She worked with the Center’s Associate Director to engage the Chapel Hill/Carrboro community in African Studies events, and she collaborated with graduate students to organize a series of online art exhibitions featuring early-career African artists who have not previously exhibited their work outside their home countries.

At Carolina Public Humanities (CPH), Vicki works with an amazing staff to create public programs (including a new collaboration with the Carrboro ArtsCenter) as well as extensive K-12 and community college outreach initiatives. Each program brings the work of Carolina’s scholars to audiences across the state. She is also laying plans for other collaborations in North Carolina communities, always with the goal of making CPH’s programs more accessible, interesting, and welcoming to everyone. She is passionate about the value of the arts and humanities, which enrich lives and foster learning about the world, our communities, and ourselves.

Vicki is grateful to be a resident of Carrboro and wants to do her part to help its arts and artists flourish. She and her wife especially love Carrboro’s galleries, markets, and cafés.