Lorraine Henry King

Biography

Lorraine Henry King is a Senior Lecturer and Senior Fellow of Advance HE and is a superhero costume researcher/practitioner, multi-media artist and race equity mentor.
Henry King’s practice-led research in Black superheroes focusses on the symbiotic relationship between corporeal skin and costume in constructing Black heroic masculinities. Costume and surface adornment are manipulated to rapidly rebalance readings of Black skin to position it as heroic.
She collaborates across the University of the Arts on practice-based methodologies in costume, social purpose and within KE projects. Her research has been presented internationally through Critical Costume, the European Popular Culture Association, Fashion Costume and Visual Cultures (FCVC) Network, and the Superhero Project. Her publications include Heroic Skins: Superheroes, Excess and Black Skin as Costume in ‘Superheroes and Excess: A Philosophical Adventure', by Jamie Brassett and Richard Reynolds as part of Routledge's 'Advances in Comics Studies' series. Lorraine is also a member of Fashion and Arts Creating Equity (FACE) and chairs the Black Identities Group for the FCVC Network.