Wednesday Window: Craftivist Collective

There's been quite a revival of old-fashioned crafts lately, with sewing and knitting dusting off their granny-in-slippers image and becoming all cool and trendy. But it can be even more than that... I thought for today's Wednesday Window I'd introduce you to some people I came across recently: the Craftivist Collective.

The term craftivism (activism through craft) was coined relatively recently, but the notion has been around for a while. The Craftivist Collective was formed in 2009 by Sarah Corbett, and was in part inspired by the quiet protests of Chilean women through the creation of complex tapestries, known as arperillas, depicting the brutal conditions of life under the Pinochet regime. Sarah also cites the charity Fine Cell Work, who teach fine needlework to prisoners in the UK, so that they can learn a skill, and with it, regain their dignity. She wrote about her ideas in this blog post, Can craft be used to help change the world?, for the British Museum.

Craftivist Collective's most recent big project, #imapiece involved inviting people worldwide to contribute one or more fabric jigsaw pieces, each individually stitched with a message, to create an art installation to raise awareness of the issues of world hunger and injustice. You can see more about this resulting artwork on the link above, or on the project's Pinterest page.

You can follow @craftivists on Twitter, and if you're moved to join in, there's news of their current projects here. You too can make a noise quietly, and have some fun in the process!