The Embroidered Stances project is in line with contemporary artists’ practices of activism and craftivism in response to the complex realities they face. This activism involves active agency in empowering oneself and collective members through encounters in discussion and gathering, expressions of opinions as well as resistance to contemporary urgent to fast performance, an overdose of digital media and the tendency to limit oneself to mind, forgetting the body and senses. Embroidering with wool yarn is a slow process involving bodily experiences of sensing wool as a material (figure 17). The feminist movement has drawn attention to the need for slow and material practices and thus the rise of craft in culture and contemporary art can be seen as a sign of empowerment and transformation of the culture (Potter, 2019). Crafts are considered creative activism when critical thinking, empowerment, expressions of opinion and resistance are promoted.
Knowledge within the craft domain is a source of skills and traditions associated with intangible cultural heritage (Kettle et al., 2013). The importance of craft, tangible memory and unique identity can be considered to increase while globalisation and technology continue to expand. Focus on digital can be seen as a threat to the craft but also as a potential means for promoting the craft. Digitalisation can help in promoting cultural revitalisation; for example, an online publication can be used to document and teach craft traditions. However, the tendency to focus on presence in the digital world conflicts with the aims to promote material sensitivity and physical gatherings, as Cervantes also reflects:
Through artistic embroidery, Cervantes aimed to represent the experience of interconnectedness with the natural world. Additionally, her embroideries and approach aspire to advocate for a shift towards more compassionate and equitable relationships with non-human organisms. Artistic processes, like embroidery, provide a platform fostering critical engagement with non-human beings and Indigenous knowledge. It beckons us to ponder whether, as Sueur (2019, p. 7) suggests, the future lies in collaboration and reciprocal respect with animals and plants.
Participants of the Embroidered Stances favour connection with natural materials as well as human connection with non-human nature: sheep wool, cochineal insects, mushrooms and plants. This mindset relates to a vision of global environmental justice. Horton and Berlo (2013) claim that contemporary materialisms fail to incorporate Indigenous philosophies into discussions about non-human agency. Horton draws attention to animism and other ways of encountering elements of nature as living beings. The same aim is also underlying within the Embroidered Stances project, but more stitching is needed to dig deeper into collaboration with materials. O’Neill and Ravetz (2013, p. 242) touched on a similar approach by describing that “boundaries between self and other, medium and substance dissolve”. They see collaboration in the craft as collaboration with human and non-human agencies that have histories and stories, and these narratives become part of encounters in craft making. Kravtsov et al. (2022) argued that collaborative and dialogical craft making can form a space for encountering other people and material and growing empathy for both. This is one of the goals we share at the Embroidered Stances project.
Cervantes experienced that the Embroidered Stances project allowed participants to be involved in the phenomenological process when, during the sessions, group members share anecdotes, stories, lived experiences, and inquiries regarding the artistic practice itself and the subjects stitched by wool yarn. Her stitched narrative tells of her cultural roots as well as the history of the material (figures 16 & 18).
We live in what is considered the digital age. In Western cultures, there is a growing trend of digitising every single aspect of human life, from converting analog data into digital files to allowing digitalization to take over all aspects of our lives, how we communicate, how we shop, how we travel, and how we experience things. Some aspects of craft, such as textures, shapes, materiality and tactile-sensorial experiences, are difficult to digitalise. Do we have to digitalise everything, and does this lead to losing human touch and real connections? (Cervantes, research diary)
Cochineal red was the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking of using red yarns for this piece. I thought that red was the colour that is best associated to represent the concepts of blood, life, death and love. With these concepts in mind, I chose to talk about the concept of death in Mexican culture, which is characterised by a unique worldview regarding death. The Indigenous celebrations of the Day of the Dead are an intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
With this piece, I seek to interpret the mixed feelings towards my own culture, first by celebrating the natural death as something inevitable like life itself, an endless cycle of symbiotic duality. At the same time, through the representation of embroidered skulls, topographical lines of the region where I was born, and spots of red yarn coloured with cochineal insect endemic from Mexico, I wanted to present a tribute to the cochineal insect, falling from the cactus, to become the red colour. With this piece I want to condemn the centuries of invasions, oppression, colonialism, violence and tragedy that have bled us as a culture, causing collective suffering for centuries. - Cervantes research diary.
