Our craft questions consumerism and rethinks waste. Our minds and hands have re-imagined, re-purposed and re-valued the precious resources of our planet.

“I used a tablecloth embroidered by my grandmother. It seemed appropriate, because my grandmother’s grandparents came to Australia to escape religious persecution. By including her embroidery, I felt I was collaborating with her younger self.”

- Candy Barnes, Australia, Article18, the Blue Quilt

UDHR Blue quilt

Read more about each quilt block

Article 21

Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

About my work

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I grew up on a farm and before I could talk, I was using marks to try to capture my world. It was obvious that I had artistic ‘talent’ but, alas, I wasn’t allowed to develop these skills until later in life. I became a full time professional artist in 2002.

Initially a painter and printmaker, with work exhibited both locally and internationally, in 2004 I was commissioned to produce several pieces of environmental art.

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Article 20

Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

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Alicia Hagadorn is an American painter, fine artist, photographer, and fibre artist from the Adirondacks in New York state. She is currently living in New Hampshire attending art school. 

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Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

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Camila Ussa / Veneno was born in Colombia and is currently working from Brooklyn, New York. She is a multidisciplinary street artist who is fascinated by handicrafts and how  DIY is changing the world we live in. Veneno started as 100% handmade embroidered designs, as patches and clothes, but rapidly started to change as the artist decided to work with different materials and mixed media (stencil, collage, painting, stickers, zines, video…). The work is usually dropped around the streets of Brooklyn or Manhattan and shared via social media. 

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Article 18

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

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Candy Barnes is an Australian stitcher who loves to explore hand-stitching in many forms, including hand-quilting, embroidery, visible mending, sashiko and boro-stitching, hand-piecing and English paper-piecing and textile collage. She lives with her husband and three children in sunny Brisbane. She has a background in psychology and counselling. 

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Article 17

Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

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Judy O’Riordan is a printmaker, textile artist, maker, collector and chancer who lives and works in Limerick, Ireland. Since she was a young child, Judy has followed in her aunt’s footsteps and has always been making things, either sewing, knitting, crocheting, painting or gluing things together. She wanted to go to art college when younger but discovered work, and liked getting a wage at the end of the week!

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Article 16

Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

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Mogalakwena Craft Art Development Foundation (MCADF) was established in 1994 by Dr Elbé Coetsee with the mission to create employment opportunities for previously disadvantaged women; promote and redevelop traditional craft-art skills inherent in rural communities, but which had become dormant due to poverty and lack of marketing opportunities; record and preserve indigenous knowledge of living oral cultures; nurture and develop creativity of children living in remote rural communities; market craft-art design products in selected retail outlets in South African and international locations

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Article 15

Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

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Tal Fitzpatrick is an artist, researcher, activist and community development worker based in Melbourne, Australia. She is an exhibiting artist and a published academic with extensive experience working in the non-profit sector as a community development worker, and an adult educator in community disaster resilience-building.

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Article 14

Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

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Born in 1988, Canberra-based self-made contemporary artist Kate Ahmad currently woks with thread ‘sketching’, watercolour paints, botanical material, photography, recycled and raw fabrics. 

Kate draws inspiration from her surrounds, love of nature and nostalgia for Canberra and its surrounding landscapes. She is passionate about having a full understanding and respect for the craft of embroidery in order to disrupt and manipulate it. 

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Article 13

Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

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Alabamathirteen is a Yorkshire-born and based artist obsessed with bodies + spaces + horror. Key themes that run through their work include the impact of visual culture on the development of gendered bodies practices; how marginalised groups, particularly women, occupy public space; and how we use our senses to experience bodies and spaces.

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Article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

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Alice is a passionate embroiderer, inspired by Ireland—its history, its culture, its landscape. She uses her extensive knowledge of embroidery and textile techniques to create contemporary wall art. Her attention to pattern, colour and texture allows customers to take a small piece of Ireland into their homes.
 

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