Sewing dissent: craftivism through the ages – in pictures
Craft is often dismissed as low art, a hobby or women’s work. But across the centuries, even before the term craftivism was given in 2003 to the practice of using traditional handicrafts for political purposes, the assumptions about its benign and gendered nature have been subverted and challenged by makers in all mediums. Craftivism is just one element of She Persists, the National Gallery of Victoria’s new project exploring the intersections of art, gender and protest. A book and online audiovisual experience, She Persists showcases women’s contribution to art and design from the 17th to 21st centuries
• Captions from NGV’s Myf Doughty, Maria Quirk, Danielle Whitfield, Judith Ryan and Sigourney Jacks
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Votes for Women, sash (c. 1909) by Women’s Social and Political Union, London (distributor); Toye and Co, London (manufacturer)
British suffrage organisations in the early 20th century drew on the talents of a new generation of women artists and designers and built on a long tradition of middle-class female fundraising. By harnessing mediums like embroidery, which epitomised women’s domesticity, and using them for activism, suffrage campaigners helped forge a new visual language of femininity and define a new role for women in society.Photograph: All works – NGV
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We’re all gonna die by Michelle Hamer (2013)
Wool, plastic. We’re all gonna die highlights the language of our everyday environment, the language of billboards. Without the context that this was an advertisement for a band’s single, the billboard is overtly macabre and foreboding. Hamer uses embroidery to inspire people to be present and notice their surroundings. Hamer considers each stitch that is sewn with the intention that those who view it will be interested and aware of the details in the work and therefore the details in their everyday lives. -
Coal musubi neckpiece by Kyoko Hashimoto (designer), from Musubi Neckpiece series (2019)
Coal, vegetable tanned kangaroo skin, eucalyptus wood, waxed linen. Lumps of coal collected from the Sydney Basin as precious beads, turned into spheres on a lathe and delicately cradled in a kangaroo leather musubi knot. Hashimoto taps into the long legacy of jewellery as a craft capable of ascribing deep meaning and value to material in order to critique our post-industrial attitudes toward consumption of resources and destruction of nature. -
Bag (c. 1826) by Birmingham Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves (makers) and Samuel Lines (designer)
Silk, cotton, steel. In the 18th and 19th centuries, needlework was a required part of a woman’s education and aptitude for this activity was perceived to contribute to the happiness and wellbeing of the home. The Society used this assumption that craft was benign to create anti-slavery work bags filled with anti-slavery literature. Members distributed the bags to create conversation, raise money and support other organisations fighting for the immediate emancipation of British slaves. -
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Bag, reverse (c. 1826) by Birmingham Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves (makers) and Samuel Lines (designer)
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Condi was blown away by George’s flashing repartee by Penny Byrne (2006)
Porcelain, epoxy resin, plastic, metal tacks, retouching medium. A trained ceramics conservator, Byrne uses her skills to destroy and rebuild found porcelain objects, including these kitschy, mass-produced figurines. Part of the ‘George and Laura’ series which critiqued the political stance of the administration of former US president George W. Bush, this scene comments on efforts of former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to continually ameliorate the president’s linguistic and political gaffes. -
Pufferfish by Mylene Holroyd (2017)
Synthetic polymer paint on ghost net, polystyrene and plastic, steel cable, chicken wire. Holroyd’s Pufferfish is a dramatic form based on the artist’s acute observation of this fish observed in the waters around Pormpuraaw, her country. It becomes larger than life and gains a political edge through the artist’s deft interweaving of recycled ghost net that chokes the life out of marine creatures in waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria, a fertile fishing ground for small- and large-scale fishing enterprises. -
The sea between A and I by Louisa Bufardeci (2014-2015)
Wool, fibreglass screen. Bufardeci says: ‘Crafting is a form of meditation for me. It is an opportunity to reflect on the issues that matter to me. The sea between A and I involved drawing on a combination of factual research and personal intuitive response about the lives of asylum seekers that were lost in the sea between Indonesia and Christmas Island ... The gridded nature of the needlepoint abstracts the already abstracted satellite images of the sea that the works are based on.’ -
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Another day, another dollar (partial) by Peter Tully (1987)
Leather, metal, glass. Living in New York from 1979-1980, jeweller Peter Tully imbibed the politics and proclivities of the city’s gay scene. He began making bodily adornments and garments which he later coined Urban tribalwear, a codified form of fashion that drew on queer dress codes. The title of this work and the decorative alphabet that lines the edges of this wrap reference the gritty and neglected neighbourhood of Alphabet City, New York, which was home to a burgeoning music and arts scene. -
Sydney quilt by David McDiarmid (1978)
Coloured plastic laminate, lenticular and holographic postcards, plastic coated curtain rods, plastic-coated stainless steel cable and plastic-coated wire. Sydney quilt is a complex work that pays homage to Australian kitsch, reclaims handicraft traditions known as ‘women’s work’ and critiques preconceived notions of gay identity. Lenticular postcards depicting the Opera House, Harbour Bridge and Bondi beach, koalas and kangaroos appropriate tourist kitsch but also signal the importance of Sydney to an increasingly fertile, liberating creative scene. -
Santa Cruz River by Alexandra Kehayoglou (2017)
Wool. Kehayoglou’s practice merges the traditional craft of hand-tufted wool rug-making with contemporary industrial production techniques. Santa Cruz River is a monumental rug which depicts the then-proposed site of two hydroelectricity super-dams on the Santa Cruz River in Patagonia – the last wild river in Argentina. Both dams are now under construction after being delayed by ongoing legal battles led by environmentalists.
