Red quilt

Alicia Alvis

website@moadoph.gov.au — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 22:50:28 +0000

Alicia Alvis website@moadop… Fri, 10/12/2018 - 09:50

Alicia Alvis’s upbringing was a study of contrasts.

Growing up as the second of three girls, on army ammunition bases around New Zealand, with a bomb technician father and a spiritualist/massage therapist (and champion knitter) mother, Alicia gained the perspective of the complete left-to-right spectrum. Most of her childhood photos are of her holding explosives or modelling a hand-knitted, adult-sized mohair jacket.

She played the drums throughout her schooling and into her early 20s, when she realised she’d rather work behind the scenes than in front of them. She went on to gain her higher education in audio engineering and later received her dangerous goods (pyrotechnics) license, so she could combine her love of detailed fidgety work (wiring), live music events—and ‘blowing s--t up’.

Having moved to Melbourne, Australia, after the 2011 earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, Alicia found herself working at a vintage toys, comics and collectables shop. It was her personal love of 1980s cartoons and action figures that lead her to Los Angeles in 2013 for a He-Man convention, where she met her husband, a US Marine, who is now a successful artist working in the realm of sculpture and high-end collectables.

To make their union official, hoops had to be jumped through, so she put her action figure collection into storage, and set off to New Orleans with her prized Pomeranian, Misfit. Eighteen months of living in the south was an experience for her as a non-Christian liberal. Unable to legally work, she filled her time with raising her stepson, DIY house renovations, crafting up a sequined storm, and becoming a foster-mom to local dogs in need of love and rehoming.

She moved her family back to New Zealand in early 2018, with the fresh news she was pregnant with identical twin girls, who were born at the very end of August.

Her current application to join the New Zealand Fire Service has been put on hold temporarily, so she can grow a couple of creative, compassionate young women, who will be proficient at hand-to-hand combat before reaching kindergarten age.

Alicia Alvis

English

New Zealand

Not being much of a talker, I’ve always struggled to adequately put my feelings into words. Equality is something I’ve always felt very passionate about, and I’ve been wanting to create a piece to contribute for some time, but didn’t know how or where to start. When I saw this project come across my Instagram feed, I had a tunnel-vision moment, and I jumped at the opportunity! Creatively and instantly, I saw my UDHR block 90% complete, and thankfully, my Article was still available!

I’ve been working with sequins for a number of years now, making custom back patches and wall-hangings, etc. I wanted something eye-catching and with a good use of colour contrast.

UDHR Article

Article 1

Quilt

Red quilt

Vanessa Ægirsdóttir

website@moadoph.gov.au — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 23:15:15 +0000

Vanessa Ægirsdóttir website@moadop… Fri, 10/12/2018 - 10:15

Vanessa Ægirsdóttir is a textile artist with over 20 years’ experience working with fabrics, yarns, and other fibre-based media. Her earliest childhood memories are firmly anchored in playing dress-up, handmade dollies and crafting. Her mother was a west-coast Canadian hippie with a love for fabrics, embroidery, quilting, and handcrafts, which instilled in Vanessa a love for making things with her hands from even the simplest, often repurposed materials.

She has attended two residencies in north Iceland and has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Canada and Iceland. During her time in Iceland, she has spent considerable time exploring ‘slow textiles’ using manual, traditional methods of making fabric. She hand-spins her yarns on a spinning wheel and uses a hand-built frame loom to produce her tapestries.

In her work, her love of Canada and Iceland is evident. Her Iceland Series highlights the limited palette and textural uniqueness of the rugged landscape. In these pieces she uses exclusively Icelandic materials–wool, fish leather, lava rock, and swan feathers. The Canadian works reflect the range of colours found in the scenery that make Canadian landscapes so unforgettable. As with the Icelandic weavings, Vanessa uses exclusive Canadian materials in her Canada Series; materials such as wool, sea glass, quartz, and shale.

In her practice, she puts particular focus on mastering the proper processing techniques and use of the dual-coated wool of the Icelandic sheep (which is a particular challenge) and producing yarns, fabrics, and tapestries from this unique fibre. Additionally, she takes great care and pride in each step of processing fleeces, regardless of origin, to allow each breed of wool to be celebrated and enjoyed for its individual beauty.

Vanessa Ægirsdóttir

English

Canada

Canadian

I chose this particular declaration because of how it relates to the rights and freedoms that I see being violated every day in my community and in the life of my partner, who is a First Nations man. As an advocate for the rights of those experiencing racism, sexism, transphobia, misogyny and xenophobia, I wanted this quilt block to represent each of them by using floss in non-Caucasian flesh tones for the Article text and for each of the French knots along the border.

It was a hugely time-consuming endeavour to fill the border with all of those tiny knots, but the time spent doing so was used to hold these people up and to honour them and their rights.

UDHR Article

Article 2

Quilt

Red quilt

Dahlia Rodriguez

website@moadoph.gov.au — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 23:52:47 +0000

Dahlia Rodriguez website@moadop… Fri, 10/12/2018 - 10:52

Dahlia Rodriguez studied history of art and management of cultural heritage in Valencia and development cooperation at Hegoa Institute, Spain. From 2004 to 2010, she worked as project manager in the fields of cultural development cooperation in organisations based in Argentina, France, Lebanon and Morocco.

Since 2009, she has worked on intercultural dialogue and women’s empowerment for international organisations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the North–South Centre of the Council of Europe and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC). In this framework, she organised international events such as forums, summer schools, conferences and workshops.

In 2015, Dahlia joined Dialogue Café Association to coordinate international debates on social innovation, creative makers, human rights and intercultural dialogue. At the same time she started to collaborate with the Global Platform for Syrian Students, where she currently works.

Her interest in traditional artisanship and cultural heritage brought new projects to her life: the Craftivism Lab, a digital lab to promote and share information about craftivists promoting social change; her own brand of textile creation; and Mus-Art, a research project aimed at promoting women artisans and enhancing artisan know-how.

Dahlia Rodriguez

Spanish

Portugal

Spanish

Dahlia strongly believes in arts and culture as vectors of social change. The promotion of the UDHR was a very special opportunity because the project involved embroidery and quilting: creative languages without borders used for centuries worldwide, especially by women, to express their deepest thoughts and feelings.

Dahlia used her profile as a basis for the embroidery in her block. The rainbow symbolises threats the LGBTIQ+ collective is still facing everywhere in this world. However, the rose colour of Dahlia’s voice and body is a reference to feminism, and a bridge to other craftivism initiatives such as the Pussy Hat. Dahlia used long stitches to strengthen her message. Showing her principles and commitment to sustainability, she reused old French linen and cotton threads.

Dahlia believes that working with more than 130 persons from over the world was the most important value of this initiative. ‘It’s an example of how powerful we are,’ she says, ‘because together we can make it happen.’

UDHR Article

Article 3

Quilt

Red quilt

Helen Fraser

website@moadoph.gov.au — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 02:41:45 +0000

Helen Fraser website@moadop… Fri, 10/12/2018 - 13:41

Both a contemporary artist and a psychologist/psychoanalytic psychotherapist, Helen Fraser creates art that connects the past to the present using symbols that can lead to healing and change. She melds her love of textiles with psychology by creating drawings of textiles that act as a metaphor for the human condition. She also creates embroidered and quilted textiles and her work is held in private and public collections in Australia, the United States, Canada and Italy. Her fourth solo exhibition, Tassels and Fragments, was recently held at Falkner Gallery, Castlemaine, Victoria.

Helen became interested in craftivism after joining the You are So Beautiful project in Melbourne. From there she contributed to the Nasty Women New York exhibition and developed an online exhibition for the Nasty Women Everywhere project. As craftivism is slow work, she likes the way it provides time to think and gives space for relationships to develop at a natural pace. The opportunity to join the #UDHquilt Project has further solidified her commitment to this way of working as part of her artistic practice. Her dream is to coordinate a large-scale craftivism project to enhance understanding of Australia’s slave history and the legacy within the Australian South Sea Islander (ASSI) community.

In addition Helen offers regular commissions, creates custom drawings, and sells her work regularly via exhibitions, stockists, her website, Instagram and studio visits by appointment. Her interests and influences include textiles, embroidery, human rights and everyday democracy, running, psychoanalytic literature, community psychology, gardening and conversations.

Helen Fraser

English

Australia

English, Scottish, German

I stumbled across this project when I was researching indigo cloth and its connection to the transatlantic slave trade. I selected a piece of vintage indigo cloth from Japan made in 1948—the year the UDHR was written.

Through my block I have attempted to bring awareness to Australia’s hidden slave history, namely ‘blackbirding’. South Sea Islanders were lured, tricked and kidnapped to work on Queensland’s sugar plantations or in the maritime industry between 1863 and 1904. I felt shocked and saddened that I didn’t learn this at school.

I am continuing to learn a great deal since I completed my block. I can see that indigenous people around the world need support and respect for their healing and the ongoing spiritual, emotional, physical and relational impact of colonisation. I have sought out conversations and as a result, a wider sense of community is developing in my real life and inner world. This has been life-changing.

UDHR Article

Article 4

Quilt

Red quilt

Rut Martinez Hernandez

website@moadoph.gov.au — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 02:48:08 +0000

Rut Martinez Hernandez website@moadop… Fri, 10/12/2018 - 13:48

Rut Martinez Hernández is from Terrassa, Spain. She is a maker and craftivist who has been involved in many activist projects related to housing, violence against women and the preservation of the environment. She is a graduate from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia holding a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy with a focus on political science and feminism. She currently works as a technician in social housing for the Terrassa city council.

Rut has lived in Spain, China and Italy. She has been interested and involved in social and environmental issues from a young age. She got involved in politics at age 16 when she became one of the youngest members of the local branch of the green party Iniciativa per Catalunya. Today she is an outstanding member of the feminist group Dones amb Iniciativa within this party.

She has always been connected to the arts in one way or another, but it was not until recently that both her activism and her love for art came together. For the last five years she has participated in several craftivist projects such as ‘End Gun Violence’ (Chicago, United States), ‘Yo no soy tu abuela’ (Barcelona, Spain) and ‘Cotorres’ (Mallorca, Spain.)

The last collective exhibition in which Rut participated has been Women and Work at the Sagrada Família Civic Center (Barcelona, Spain).

Rut Martinez Hernandez

Italian, Spanish, Catalan

Spain

Spanish, Catalan

In Spain between 1936 and 1939, Francisco Franco led a military uprising that snatched power from a democratically elected government. Many people, among them my great-grandparents, were tortured in the dictatorship’s prisons. Both my grandmothers received inhumane and degrading treatment by the mere fact of being from a republican family. My father also suffered torture in his fight for freedom. Torture practices lasted through and after Franco’s dictatorship, well into 1978. There is still a need to stop situations where people are inhumanely treated because they think and live differently.

I have used home textiles: sheets and white cloth. This symbolises many Spanish families who have silenced their loss of loved ones: they cry only at home, for fear of reprisals, even 40 years after the dictator’s death. The fabric with flowers symbolises fresh flowers on the countless common graves of people without identification in our country. They are still anonymous. We are a country without memory.

UDHR Article

Article 5

Quilt

Red quilt

Emma Dolan

website@moadoph.gov.au — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 02:56:53 +0000

Emma Dolan website@moadop… Fri, 10/12/2018 - 13:56

Emma Dolan is a textile artist based in England, originally trained in surface-pattern design and print. Having stepped away from the contemporary craft world over the last year, Emma is presently focusing on collaborative textile projects addressing women’s rights in the United Kingdom, such as protecting sex-segregated provisions, safeguarding children in schools, and the protection of women from the sex industry. She is one of a group of women, the Leeds Spinners, who hold regular embroidery and craftivist meetings in her hometown of Leeds in Yorkshire. The area has a long tradition in the textile industry with women at the heart of the mills and political life, at the beginning of the UK trade union movement. The Leeds Spinners are part of this tradition of creative, proactive women.

Emma Dolan

English

England, United Kingdom

English

The block I made uses digitally printed cotton and hand-embroidery, using imagery of visual identity recognition technology.

Craftivism is a valuable tool in publicising issues overlooked or deliberately ignored by mainstream media. This project was brought to my attention at a time when, having been recently re-politicised by world and national events, I wanted to move into work with a more overt social message.

I looked back to ‘the personal is political’ mantra from my early art college days; what I now know is called ‘second wave’ feminism. Since beginning this project, I have been motivated to become more actively involved in feminist actions and we now have a feminist, female-only embroidery and political discussion group meeting monthly in my hometown of Leeds in the UK. I see myself as a lapsed feminist, recently awoken to a crisis in women’s rights that we have collectively sleepwalked into over the last two decades.

UDHR Article

Article 6

Quilt

Red quilt

Sherrell Biggerstaff Cuneo

website@moadoph.gov.au — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 02:59:41 +0000

Sherrell Biggerstaff Cuneo website@moadop… Fri, 10/12/2018 - 13:59

I’m a costumer by profession, but for my wellbeing and sanity I stitch and make things. Most of my work is around endangered species and extinction. I have worked with sixth graders on Sew The SEEDS: Saving Earth’s Endangered and Diverse Species, which was inspired by the AIDS Memorial Quilt. I also have several ongoing personal projects including an AIDS-quilt inspired extinction quilt. For my sanity I try to work on smaller personal pieces around feminism and self-growth. But mostly these days I am working on my Mourning Gown, a full-length muslin dress embroidered with the names of recently extinct species. I sometimes consider stitching to be a kind of spell work, or meditation, that with intent, can accomplish much more than one would expect from just fabric and thread.

Sherrell Biggerstaff Cuneo

English

United States of America

American, German

I fully embrace the power of craftivism, and public quilting and stitching projects to educate, influence and create positive change. I also believe we are living in a very volatile time. We need the UDHR more than ever. I say this as a citizen of the United States watching my country in danger of corroding under the current government.

Also, climate change and perceived differences are driving many people from their homes and creating climate and political refugees. As many parts of the world become less habitable, all forms of life will suffer.

When I read Article 7, I immediately thought of New Zealand’s Whanganui River, which in 2017 was given the rights of a human being. The Māori people worked for years within the legal system to accomplish this. I wanted to highlight their success and also support a mindset that appreciates and recognises the rights of all species, and of Earth itself.

UDHR Article

Article 7

Quilt

Red quilt

Sofia Fitzpatrick

website@moadoph.gov.au — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 03:03:00 +0000

Sofia Fitzpatrick website@moadop… Fri, 10/12/2018 - 14:03

Sofia Fitzpatrick is a Sydney-based artist, who was born into a family of creatives.

From as early as she can remember, Sofia could hold a pen and this is where it all started, drawing. When she left school at 16, Sofia got her first job drawing illustrations for history books. After that she began collaborating with her paternal grandmother, artist Dawn Fitzpatrick, who created ‘cloth-art’ using the techniques of applique-quilting, painting and drawing. After spending time living overseas and working as an artist making hand-painted tiling, Sofia returned to Australia.

Today, Sofia Fitzpatrick specialises in creating wearable art and boutique hand-carved jewellery made using lost-wax carving techniques. Her work has been featured in publications such as Skull Style and Rock Star Chic: the dark side of high fashion which feature works from over a hundred of the world’s most influential contemporary artists and designers. Sofia has also been showcased in a number of exhibitions and collaborations that have seen her gain international recognition for her raw and beautiful skull-inspired designs.

Sofia Fitzpatrick

English

Australia

Australian, Swiss

I am passionate about human rights because we are all on this planet together. We need to look out for each other. We are all one, all connected. What we do to others we are doing to ourselves. For me that also extends to animals and the planet itself. We are made out of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen atoms and other elements that were created in stars over 4.5 billion years ago. Homo sapiens and every other animal, as well as most of the matter on Earth, contain these elements. The eyes floating with stars symbolise that we are all made of stardust!

I began the work by writing out the text on the fabric with chalk, then stitching over it with coloured thread. It took a long time to stitch. The writing was quite tedious, but when I got to the free style of stitching the eyes and the stars, I really started enjoying myself.

UDHR Article

Article 8

Quilt

Red quilt

Rachel Louise Edler

website@moadoph.gov.au — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 02:42:45 +0000

Rachel Louise Edler website@moadop… Mon, 10/15/2018 - 13:42

Rachel Edler is a textile artist currently residing in Bristol, England. She uses the free-motion embroidery technique in her work, using vintage fabrics and patterns to contrast with her embroidered illustrations. This is her first time participating in a craftivist project, although she is keen to do more.

Rachel Louise Edler

English

England, United Kingdom

English

This project really resonated with me, partly because it is the medium I choose to engage in, but also because in this political climate, the UDHR needs to be shouted from the rooftops.

Whilst researching my block, I found a multitude of stories linked to Article 9, all heart-wrenching. Rather than using imagery specific to one of these stories, I wanted to create a striking image that people would remember and that would encapsulate the theme of this Article. I chose an anonymous fist wrapped around bars. However, I also wanted to instil the notion of hope within the image. I chose floral fabric to symbolise this, inspired by the saying; ‘They tried to bury us; they didn’t know we were seeds’.

UDHR Article

Article 9

Quilt

Red quilt

Kathryn Clark

website@moadoph.gov.au — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 02:44:19 +0000

Kathryn Clark website@moadop… Mon, 10/15/2018 - 13:44

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.

Kathryn Clark

English

United States of America

American

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.

UDHR Article

Article 10

Quilt

Red quilt