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Elka Stevens

Quiltmaker

  Washington, D.C., , United States    

Black Diaspora Quilt History Project

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Dr. Elka Stevens, a 5th generation quilter, serves as an associate professor of visual culture and studio art, Fashion Design program coordinator, and textiles collection curator in Howard University’s Art Department. As an interdisciplinary scholar and artist, Elka uses textiles and clothing as a lens of analysis, inspiration, and media for her scholarship. Her fiber and digital creative works explore identity, sustainability, and social justice. Stevens teaches design, textiles, international trade, visual culture, and consumer behavior courses. Three decades of educational, design, retail, media, collections, and industry experience – plus international travel – inform her teaching, research, and studio practice. Elka received her PhD from the University of Minnesota and maintains membership in various service and professional organizations.

Dr. Stevens was a Council of American Overseas Research Centers fellow to India in 2019-20 and Senegal in 2024, a 2021 Summer Institute for Israel Studies at Brandeis University fellow, and Artist-in-Residence: Creative Practice in Critical Race Studies in the Department of Art at Michigan State University for the 2021-22 academic term. In March 2023, Elka became the inaugural Howard University Affiliated Faculty at the American Academy in Rome in Rome Italy, where she initiated research for a new body of work: a series of quilts based on global trajectories of black women artists.

Visit her website, Elka Stevens, PhD, Live Artfully

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