Article 18

Janine Heschl

website@moadoph.gov.au — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 03:09:01 +0000

Janine Heschl website@moadop… Mon, 10/15/2018 - 14:09

Janine Heschl is a self-taught wildlife textile artist and activist based in Austria. Janine specialises in realistic thread-painting, embroidered with a sewing machine in free-motion sewing technique. Her main concern lies in the welfare of Mother Nature and its beautiful creatures. Realistic animal portraits have become her trademark over the years, in order to raise awareness of the danger of extinction and pollution. Her latest activist project entailed raising funds together with Dr Jane Goodall during her last visit to Vienna, by auctioning a textile portrait for the Jane Goodall Institut-Austria.

Janine Heschl

German

Austria

Austrian, German

My main motivation for joining the UDHR project was to be part of a vital statement. I believe that artists have the power to spread messages in a very unique way that reaches hearts and ruffles feathers.

Austria has a dark past when it comes to the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. With nationalism growing stronger by the year, I felt that Article 18 was important for me to stitch. I embroidered it on an Austrian Army uniform, to reflect on the power of indoctrination and to symbolise the control of government. Without the freedom of religion, there can be no real freedom of speech, of opinion and expression and, consequently, no peace.

UDHR Article

Article 18

Quilt

Red quilt

Marine Fisch

website@moadoph.gov.au — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 05:11:54 +0000

Marine Fisch website@moadop… Mon, 10/15/2018 - 16:11

Marine Fisch is a mixed-media artist born in 1987, living and working in Lyon, France.
She is a very happy mother of a little girl, finds happiness in books, walks, folk music and red-wine late hours. Marine is an artist, but she’s also a teacher. Or a self-proclaimed art therapist. She doesn’t really know how to name it. But she tries to help young and old people by art. In schools, museums, retirement homes or in her own studio, she encourages her students to express themselves and experiment with all kinds of visual art.

She studied at university in Strasbourg and in 2011 obtained a Master’s in visual art. From that day, she draws, manipulates and creates in an intimate universe—a universe where little things are magnified. For her, art is hidden in the poetry of everyday life and the act of creation begins by tracking those little things, collecting them and then revealing their artistic essences.

Her work takes many different forms: embroidery on found objects, soft sculptures and oriented ready-mades. Lately, she has begun to write and illustrate poems and books for children (and grown children) celebrating our precious Mother Earth. She is a militant for equal rights for every human being, animal and all kinds of life. Marine’s artwork conveys an animist purpose supported by a strong ecologist posture. In fact, for her, art is a weapon. And in her case, a soft weapon: a diffuser of thoughts to make a silent change, first step of the green revolution.

Marine Fisch

French

France

French, of Spanish and Swiss descent

The fabric is a patch of sheet. This Article is about freedom of thoughts; I liked the idea that so many thoughts are sleeping somewhere in this fabric. We see a head. Isn’t it the cradle of our thoughts? An arrow is pointing upward, towards the sky: the thought going out.

The hair is in a circle, like an aureole, highlighted by a black trace: a print of an old doily. I love doilies. There is magic in them. They are like mandalas. When we are making them, we take a posture of meditation; sometimes even a kind of trance can settle on us.

I wanted this work to refer to the idea of religion: the aureole like a universal symbol of spirituality, the doily like a pagan aureole. An artwork celebrating freedom of thought for everyone. All thought should be respected as long as it respects others. That was the purpose of my embroidery.

UDHR Article

Article 18

Quilt

Green quilt

Candy Barnes

website@moadoph.gov.au — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 05:35:18 +0000

Candy Barnes website@moadop… Mon, 10/15/2018 - 16:35

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.

Candy began stitching as a child, taught by her mother whose specialty was cross-stitch. During her university study, she explored and experimented with embroidery on clothes, visible mending and upcycling as a hobby and a method of sustainable fashion.

Laying embroidery aside for several years, Candy returned to it after having children, as a way to express herself and recover from post-traumatic stress after a difficult birthing experience. She is fascinated by the power of hand-stitching as a way of releasing emotional stress and trauma. Candy believes in the therapeutic quality of creating in general, and hand-stitching in particular, and is currently exploring meditative stitching and the benefits of it on her chronic illnesses and stress management.

The portable nature of handiwork, along with the therapeutic aspects, inspire Candy to dream of new ways that she can use this form of creativity as a way to create a safe place of connection and welcome for refugees and other people new to Australia. She is thrilled to be involved with this craftivism project, and hopes to participate in more collaborative and individual craftivism projects in the future.

Candy Barnes

English

Australia

Australian, ancestors came to Australia from Prussia to escape religious persecution

My faith is vitally important to me, and I greatly value my religious freedom. I want the same freedom for every person. It is heartbreaking to see people being victims of hatred and fear-based treatment due to others’ intolerance and ignorance of this human right.

I used a tablecloth embroidered by my grandmother. It seemed appropriate, because my grandmother’s grandparents came to Australia to escape religious persecution. My grandmother won prizes for her needlework, a fact I discovered only after her death. By including her embroidery, I felt I was collaborating with her younger self.

The original piece featured a floral arrangement in a bowl. I added a flipped-open silhouette to represent an open mind, free to blossom, unrestricted by discrimination and prejudice. I hope viewers will evaluate their treatment of others of different faiths. I hope they will also reflect on their own beliefs, and question if they are allowing their minds to blossom and thrive.

UDHR Article

Article 18

Quilt

Blue quilt

Gugui Cebey

website@moadoph.gov.au — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 05:50:44 +0000

Gugui Cebey website@moadop… Mon, 10/15/2018 - 16:50

I’m a textile artist and designer. I work with, and only with, recycled and repurposed textiles. Through them I invite people to talk about issues pertinent to the fashion and textile industry, such as overconsumption, contamination, and violations of human and labour rights. I tend to use craft tools, not only because I feel more comfortable working by hand, but also to show my appreciation to them, and also to show that things made by hand have beautiful value in contrast with the ones made by impersonal machines that surround us. I consider myself a craftivist and I love cats :)

Gugui Cebey

Spanish

Argentina

Argentinian, Spanish, Italian

I’m an atheist. But I do believe in your freedom of practising any religion you choose. And my right to not practise any religion. In the Article, nothing is said about we who do not have a religion. I suppose it is implied. But I need it being said in a more specific way. So I added: ‘*Everyone has the right to not be discriminated, persecuted or harassed for their religion, thought and conscience or for choosing to not profess any.’

Religion has been an excuse for war for thousands of years. The inability to be respectful of others’ choices is what makes us fight each other as often as we do. Our way is always better. So it must be imposed. And tolerance is non-existent.

My block was made with recycled textiles. All my craftivism projects revolve around critical thinking and making the most of materials, avoiding sending them to the trash as much as I can.

UDHR Article

Article 18

Quilt

Yellow quilt