Stitching for Material Sensitivity: From Traditional to Activist Embroidery
(2023)
author(s): Fabiola Hernandez Cervantes, Maria Huhmarniemi
published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
Cochineal is an insect that has been used for textile dyeing since pre-Hispanic cultures in Mexico. This exposition discusses the use of the cochineal insect as a natural dye for wool and the bridge between ancient indigenous knowledge and contemporary artistic research. A transatlantic connection is created between the Mexican plateau and the Arctic region, merging traditional knowledge, contemporary art, crafting and conceptualisation through an artistic embroidery initiative involving researchers, craft artists and human rights activists living in the province of Lapland in Finland. Documentary photos of artistic practice and research diaries enhance discussion on sustainability, tradition, craftivism, decolonisation and indigenous knowledge. This exposition embraces collaborative craftivism through a group initiative called Embroidered Stances, discussions about material interconnectedness in a web-of-life conceptual structure that includes sheep wool, cactus, cochineal and ancestral knowledge. The endorsement of material sensitivity is narrated into embroideries by the first author Cervantes and discussed, acknowledging complexities within issues of cultural and ecological sustainability.
Warping Protest: Decentralizing Art Activism Using Protest Textiles
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Britta Fluevog
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
My practice-based arts research proposes to create a toolkit to decentralize art activism using hand-crafted textiles from an intersectional, feminist, decolonial and anti-capitalist framework.
When I say that I want to decentralize art activism, I aim to increase access in terms of location, timing and risk, so that people who do not live in major metropolises, centres of power, who work when most protests happen, or who for various reasons are not able to risk possible arrest that normal protests may present, can still engage in artistic protest. My praxis will embark on a series of art activist actions that utilize various methods of decentralization, creating a handbook that displays and analyses these methods. The ways in which textiles are particularly suited to decentralize art activism, through subterfuge, slow time, and haptic relationship will be explored within the praxis.
Answering the seemingly peripheral question of whether or not art activism is compatible within a gallery space imperative for the main theme of my research, which is decentralization of art activism. If art activism harmoniously exists within a gallery exhibition, then the easiest way to decentralize it is to send the art activism to exhibit elsewhere. My initial findings within the research suggest that act activism mostly cannot exist within sanctioned art exhibitions and therefore exhibitions are not an effective way to decentralize art activism.
My toolkit is inspired by practical how-to-guides of art activism (Boyd and Mitchell, 2012; Duncombe and Lambert, 2021; Aylwyn Walsh et al., 2022) and through textile practises such as Tanya Aguiñiga (B. 1978-), the Craftivism Collective (2009-), Aram Han Sifuentes (B. 1986-), and Sandra Suubi (B. 1990-). The critique on capitalism’s infiltration into the artworld and art activisms roll because of this that is reflected in Alana Jelinek’s ‘Lifelike art’(2013), Gregory Sholette’s ‘bare art’(Ch(Charnley, 2017)); and Brian Holmes’ ‘Liar’s poker’ (Holmes, 2010) and it helps shape my art activism practise.