Stitching Solidarity: Artists for Palestine
Embroidered handkerchief by A.K.
upcoming
6 Nov
–
30 Nov
Stitching Solidarity is the first iteration of a collective kaupapa inspired by a long history of collaborative artist-activist quilt making. The project brings artists from across the motu together to enact solidarity with the people of Palestine, through the creation of a solidarity quilt. Each participant has contributed a fabric artwork of set dimensions. These will be stitched together in Enjoy Contemporary Art Space.
The gallery will be open to the public during the stitching process, holding space for kōrero, grief, solidarity and aroha. Visitors are invited to participate in the active process of solidarity by contributing a stitch to a fabric banner. This will be sewn onto the quilt’s lower edge upon the project’s completion.
Stitching Solidarity runs until International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on November 29. The quilt will then travel around the motu, expanding in scale as the communities which host it add their own contributions.
Rachel Dedman, in the preface to Stitching the Intifada: Embroidery and Resistance in Palestine, writes:
Embroidery has, perhaps, an unlikely role in the charged context of protest. And yet, in both loud and quiet ways, in public and private, the history of the craft is bound up in Palestinian struggles for freedom and nationhood.
This quilt is our small contribution to that ongoing struggle.
No one is free until we all are free.
Free Free Palestine.
This project was conceived by Kirsty Baker and has been facilitated in collaboration with Elle Loui August, Zoe Black, Abby Cunnane, Simon Gennard, Ioana Gordon-Smith, Milly Mitchell-Anyon, Israel Randell, Melanie Tangaere-Baldwin, DJCS and Matariki Williams.
If you or your organisation are interested in hosting the quilt, please email: aotearoasolidarityquilt@gmail.com