Photo: Xander Terrin Chen

About

Elesha Casimir is a textile designer and visual artist whose practice spans weaving, collage, textile development, and performance. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Textile Design (Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia) and a Master’s in Fashion and Luxury Goods Management (Collège de Paris, magna cum laude). She has also studied fiber arts at Massey University (NZ), print design at the Fashion Institute of Technology (NY), and French language and literature at the Alliance Française (NYC).

Her professional background includes working as a Technical Designer for Ralph Lauren Home Textiles (New York), and as a Textile Designer and Researcher at Maison N.H Paris, where she collaborated on accessories and product development between Paris and Madagascar. Since 2020, she has worked as a freelance designer in Paris, developing home and apparel prints, logos, trend analysis, and product development.

Casimir’s artistic work emphasizes the use of discarded objects, repurposed materials, and hand-weaving to explore themes of memory, identity, race, ecology, and cultural hybridity. She has exhibited and shared her practice through workshops, and for the past three years has also worked as a part-time art teacher for children in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Créteil (France), as well as a volunteer textile teacher in New York and Philadelphia.