This week, I’m asking you to look at three examples of textile arts used as tools for social change. I hope you get inspired! Just like last week, choose one to focus on and MAKE A POST of at least 3 paragraphs discussing an interesting idea related to that topic.
NAMES Project (AIDS Quilt)
Please review these resources on the NAMES Project, better known as the AIDS quilt.
READ this website and WATCH the three videos on it. (Especially the first and second! I really like the second one.) https://www.aidsmemorial.org/quilt-history
READ Cleve Jones writing about the history of the quilt: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/how-one-mans-idea-for-the-aids-quilt-made-the-country-pay-attention/2016/10/07/15917576-899c-11e6-b24f-a7f89eb68887_story.html?tid=a_inl_manual
Spend at least 10 minutes exploring the quilt HERE: https://www.aidsmemorial.org/quilt
Social Justice Sewing Academy
READ the “About” page of the Social Justice Sewing Academy and WATCH the video on that page.
READ the “Inspiration” page of this quilt block pattern, designed by SJSA members Sara Trail and Melinda Newton, and chosen as the National Quilt Museum’s “Block of the Month” for January 2020. LOOK at the pattern itself, on page 4. https://quiltmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/JAN-2020-BOTM-pattern2.pdf
READ this article on the controversy that resulted: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/now-even-quilters-are-angry-how-a-social-justice-design-started-a-feud/2020/01/20/0e9874be-3951-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html
Chilean Arpilleras
WATCH this video on the arpilleras of the time of Pinochet’s regime in Chile (don’t worry — the video gives you some historical background)
READ this article on the contemporary use of embroidery as protest art in Chile today: https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-02-21/chile-women-use-traditional-embroidery-urge-political-change?fbclid=IwAR1TR31tjxATvtcUVc5noVgvHNDem0V_cp2WSPK3ClqCO2IfBTyqwn68CMk
EXPLORE this Instagram collection of those embroideries: https://www.instagram.com/bordasusojos/?utm_source=ig_embed
