Art with intention: visions of newness and reform

What do a quilt, a scarf, and a vision of a feminist Utopia all have in common?

They are all at work changing the realities of our world. In the morning keynotes opening up this year’s 38th annual Scholar and Feminist conference “Utopia” we heard from several feminists at work changing the material realities of what is represented and who is seen and heard, using craft and critical design to challenge existing realities and create alternatives. Most striking was the extent to which our utopia needs be constructed; physically, in the objects we interact with, and perceptually, in the images we use to represent people and movements.

Activism Through Craft

Melanie Cervantes presented to the audience her philosophy of activism through craft, centered around “stitching lessons from stories and visions of women who shaped who we are.” A member of Dignidad Rebelde (rebel dignity) she spoke of the group’s founding motivation to push back against the idea of individualism that is dominant in US society and culture.

How? By reflecting solidarity with indigenous and international struggles through images that “agitate and inspire,” produced in her living room and reaching organizers and activists as far away as Bangkok. Reacting to day laborers’ inability to be the face of their own movement because of being “vilified” in the minds-eye of greater America, she makes images that re-incorporate and re-present the faces of those “on the frontline of a battle for dignity and human rights for all of us;” faces otherwise subsumed by a narrative over which they have no authorship.

Speaking to the theme of the conference, Cervantes said that to her, “working for a better world” means “working with other artists and movement leaders to lift up the women who don’t get to be put on a pedestal, whose names don’t get put in the history book, to understand how incredibly influential they will be… it is our responsibility to hold up those stories.”

This Utopia, she asserted, is built by connecting stitches and juxtaposing tapestries, and remembering every step of the way that “in many cultures there are roots within which we need to reach for because they have lessons for us.”

Melanie Cervantes and Elandria Williams, “Building Utopia: Stitching the Lessons from Stories and Visions of Women in Our Lives”

Continue reading →