Article 10
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Kathryn Clark
About my work
In light of recent events across the world, especially within my own country, I fear now more than ever for equality and human rights. I make work that speaks for the people who have been left behind.
With the recent fears that Russia interfered with our election, I chose to focus my latest body of work on learning about Russia and why it acts as it does today. Article 10 is routinely violated in Russia, and trials are fabricated and used against their own innocent people to attain more power within the Kremlin.
I think of every innocent person not given a fair trial in Russia and around the world when I stitch these words.
- Kathryn Clark
About me
For the past six years, Kathryn Clark has been making art about geopolitical narratives using the traditional medium of quilts and embroidery. Presenting these subjects through the use of the aesthetically pleasing textile offers a viewer a more approachable relationship with narratives that are often conveniently ignored. What at first seems beautiful, upon further investigation reveals a darker tale. The medium of textiles is a familiar one to Kathryn: her mother was a textile artist and growing up in the deep south of the United States, quilts were commonly used as storytelling tools. Each of Kathryn’s series involves copious research into maps, government data, and journalism.
In 2011, Kathryn translated neighbourhood blocks into quilt blocks: her Foreclosure Quilts mapped out foreclosures happening all across the United States, thereby sneaking the factual data into an object of beauty.
After the Foreclosure Quilts, Kathryn continued to be intrigued by uneasy or easily dismissed subjects that could be presented in an intriguing way. In 2016, Kathryn documented the Syrian refugee crisis in a series of embroideries called Refugee Stories. The hand-embroidered panels document the journey through maps and imagery of the refugees as they flee Syria and move into Europe. The series acts as a time-stamp from which future generations can learn.
Kathryn is currently creating The Russia Project, which documents the history of Russia’s rise using an embroidered infographic timeline as a narrative tool.
Other blocks about Article 10
