Article 5

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

Joanna Barakat

website@moadoph.gov.au — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 04:03:34 +0000

Joanna Barakat website@moadop… Mon, 10/15/2018 - 15:03

Through various media and techniques, Joanna Barakat’s work is predominantly portraits that explore how we interpret and construct our identity. Interested in alternative forms of communication, she brings together elements of painting, photography, Palestinian embroidery and street art to challenge and question collective ideas and stereotypes using a reimagined contemporary Palestinian aesthetic. She moved to Los Angeles from Jerusalem when she was a year old, where she was raised until she moved to London for university. Her final project at Central Saint Martins, a film about the physical and psychological borders faced by the Palestinians living in Palestine, was played in London’s Institute of Contemporary Art. She also wrote her MA dissertation about Palestinian street art while at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She is now living in Abu Dhabi where she has co-founded a community that focuses on teaching, promoting and preserving Palestinian embroidery.

Joanna Barakat

English

United Arab Emirates

Palestinian, born in Jerusalem

As a Palestinian whose family is forced to live outside our native land, it seems to me that the violation of Article 5 is a succinct summation of the Israeli occupation of Palestine since 1948. With over five million refugees displaced to this day, Palestinians face daily humiliation, dehumanisation, discrimination and abuse. There are restrictions on movement of people and goods due to checkpoints and the separation wall, demolition of homes and businesses, detention of children, and the unlawful arrests and imprisonment of civilians without charges or a fair trial. Israel is notorious for the inhumane conditions of their prisons, the extreme abuse of the prisoners and the torture methods used to extract information.

Freedoms of religion, press or speech are severely restricted and this has led to graffiti emerging as a key form of communication. In my piece, Article 5 is stencilled on the wall like graffiti and is surrounded by Palestinian embroidery motifs of stars, cypress trees and ‘the walls of Jerusalem’.

UDHR Article

Article 5

Quilt

Green quilt

The following statement by the craftivist includes contestable views about the status of Israel as a nation recognised by the United Nations and about freedom in Israel. It does not constitute comment by the Museum of Australian Democracy.

We publish it as part of our commitment, through this exhibition, to encourage conversation about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Nicole O'Loughlin

website@moadoph.gov.au — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 05:23:25 +0000

Nicole O'Loughlin website@moadop… Mon, 10/15/2018 - 16:23

Nicole O’Loughlin is a self-taught embroidery artist based in Hobart, Tasmania. Originally trained in printmaking, since the birth of her son in 2016 she has turned her hand to embroidery in order to continue her art practice in a more manageable way. She failed needlework in high school home economics, but since then has discovered her own way of learning the medium.

She has travelled extensively all over the world and finds inspiration talking to people from different walks of life. She was born in Victoria, Australia, and was raised on dairy farms all over Australia. Nicole now enjoys exploring the Tasmanian wilderness with her partner and child.

Nicole’s passions (apart from her family) are art, travel and books. She believes in lifetime learning and collecting experiences rather than possessions.

Nicole’s embroidery work has been included in the Feminist Fiber Art exhibitions in the United States. Mostly she uses humour to transcribe a political idea in her embroideries.

Nicole O'Loughlin

English

Australia

Australian

On 9 May 1991 the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was tabled in federal Parliament. But more than 25 years later, deaths in custody have not declined. There has also been a huge increase in the number of Indigenous women incarcerated. People are often incarcerated for minor offences, such as unpaid fines and drinking in the streets.

I depict the hands of an Indigenous woman stitched into a grey, prison blanket-like material. The image of the hands draws attention to the fact we are all human. The text in red highlights the urgent attention that needs to be brought to this issue. This matter should be important to all Australians. It is a breach of the UDHR.

This project was an education for me. I thought I was quite informed about deaths in custody, but I had no idea it was so bad. It is shameful that people are dying in our ‘lucky country’ for unpaid fines.

UDHR Article

Article 5

Quilt

Blue quilt

Maria Holmerin Nord

website@moadoph.gov.au — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 05:45:47 +0000

Maria Holmerin Nord website@moadop… Mon, 10/15/2018 - 16:45

I have always been a writing person, both in my personal and working life, being a communications manager. Around the age of 45, I suddenly felt my hands itching to touch and work with something solid and tangible. A week-long workshop with traditional Swedish woollen embroidery sent me zooming down the textile rabbit hole. Today I am doing needlework, wet-felting, crocheting, printing, dyeing and making shibori on a semi-professional level, preferably crafting abstract, textile sculptures.

Maria Holmerin Nord

Swedish

Sweden

Swedish

Sweden takes pride in being free and modern. But there are cracks in our shining armour. Right-wing forces are on the move. Following the wave of Syrian and African immigrants in 2015, our Parliament passed a temporary law limiting the rights of asylum seekers.

The concept of torture is far from the average Swedish citizen. If your right of asylum is denied though, it is not unlikely the Swedish state will show another face. Your home might get raided, you might be detained for an unspecified time, and you might leave Sweden in shackles and a spitting hood. Involuntary sedation has also been used.

I wanted to bring this discrepancy into my quilt, hence my choice of a tablecloth; a simple object telling of frequent coffee parties. But the red colour has a connotation of blood. That other part of Sweden is not discussed at the coffee table, but I would like to put it there, together with the sugar bowl.

UDHR Article

Article 5

Quilt

Yellow quilt

Selma Djukic

website@moadoph.gov.au — Wed, 23 Jan 2019 22:37:43 +0000

Selma Djukic website@moadop… Thu, 01/24/2019 - 09:37

Selma Djukic has been a grassroots activist for over 35 years, focusing on issues relating to women and children, human rights and civic engagement.

Selma Djukic

English

Canada

Canadia, with Bosnian heritage

I see this project as a perfect intersectionality of both of my passions: using an artistic craft lens to explore the meanings of universal human rights. Many of us are familiar with the images of torture and inhumane abuse perpetrated during modern conflicts in Iraq, so my approach to Article 5 was to use silk material from the region as canvas and embroider the horrific image of the hooded prisoner being split in two by doves of peace.

UDHR Article

Article 5

Quilt

Blue quilt