We create for purpose, not perfection. Our message is in our making. Our quilts represent our personal and universal commitment to defending human rights everywhere.

"All thought should be respected as long as it respects others. That was the purpose of my embroidery. Every day, I try to live with this kindness. Opened to the world. Looking at this work, I hope that the viewer can feel this kindness."

— Marine Fisch, France, Article 18, the Green Quilt

UDHR Green quilt

Read more about each quilt block

Article 30

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

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Anna Farago is a Melbourne-based visual artist and teacher. Her most recent solo exhibition was Stitching Place at Montsalvat in 2016. Participation in group shows in 2017 include Materiality at Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, and No Woman is an Island at Blindside, Melbourne. In 2015/16 Anna was artist-in-residence at Darebin Parklands. In 2015 she collaborated with members of Maroondah Handicrafts for A Crafted History: people and place at ArtSpace at Realm, Maroondah City Council.

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Article 29

Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

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Bethany Duffy combines traditional hand-embroidery techniques with unusual materials. She creates new and different surface designs focusing on texture and detail and incorporating a flash of colour. Her aim is to continually push and dissect her unique needlework skills and explore materials, creating unconventional, modern outcomes. 

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Article 28

Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

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I started stitching as an outlet for my need to create and a mostly questionable sense of humour with loud opinions. It’s turned into a wonderful hobby that generates a lot of personalised presents and uneasy stares at craft fairs. I was raised by a single mother who taught me to speak up for what I believe, stand up for myself and others, and to be my own person first. I am lucky to have three amazing sisters who have given me four spitfire nieces. I want to leave them a better world, one where their gender does not define their opportunities. 

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Article 27

Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

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Fiona Owens was born in London to Welsh parents. She returned to Wales aged three to be brought up in a Welsh-speaking community, in order to ensure that she was able to speak the language. Fiona grew up drawing, painting, knitting and sewing and studied fine art under Peter Prendergast. Despite this strong interest another strength came to the fore, one of representation, and Fiona trained to be a careers adviser to support people to move forward in their lives educationally and professionally.

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Article 26

Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

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Ximena Ortiz-Medina is a needleworker who started embroidering when she was eight years old in Viña del Mar, Chile. 

During her time in elementary school, she developed her fine and neat embroidery style. Since then, she is self-taught in different embroidery techniques, like crewel, needle-painting, stumpwork and cross-stitch. Other needlecrafts she makes are crocheting, sewing, knitting and painting.

Ximena participates regularly in exhibitions organised by San Francisco School of Needlework and Design in San Francisco, California.

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Article 25

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

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Lelainia Lloyd is a self-taught, mixed-media artist, writer and designer. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, she will always consider herself a dyed-in-the-wool prairie girl, but there’s no place else she’d rather live than on the beautiful west coast of Canada.

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Article 24

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

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Erica Mena is a poet, book artist, and translator. Their book Featherbone (Ricochet Editions) won a 2016 First Horizon Award, and their translation of The Eternaut by HG Oesterheld (Fantagraphics) won a 2016 Eisner Award. Other translations for Fantagraphics include Wrinkles by Paco Roca, The Ladies-in-Waiting by Santiago Garcia and Javier Olivares, and Spanish Fever edited by Santiago Garcia. They’ve received fellowships and residencies from Banff, Vermont Studio Centers, Arteles (Finland), and Trexel (Paris).

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Article 23

Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

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Kimberly Lowelle Saward, PhD, has been working with labyrinths since 1995, earning her doctorate in 2003 with a study of labyrinth walking as a transformative practice. Prior to her move to England, she worked clinically as a school counsellor and somatic therapist, and taught psychology at Sonoma State University in California. Kimberly is the author of Ariadne’s Thread: legends of the labyrinth, a psycho-spiritual study of labyrinth folk practices worldwide.

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Article 22

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

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Loretta Avery is a 19-year-old student from Vancouver, Canada. She first started embroidering when she was 15, and hasn’t stopped since. This is the first embroidery project that she’s been involved in. This project is important to Loretta because she identifies as bisexual and had a lack of LGBTQI+ content growing up. Being so close to the United States can be distracting, but she doesn’t want people to forget about Canada’s past and present with LGBTIQ+ and Indigenous rights. Loretta looks forward to being involved in more projects that give bisexual and LGBTQI+ people a platform.

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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.

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A life-long creative who’s still learning how to describe herself as an artist, Katie Fisher constantly needs to be making something. Her criteria are simple: the ‘something’ needs to be something amusing, or important, or both.

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