A Home can be a World
Rohma Khan
“A Home Can be a World” will illustrate the realities and working conditions of Home-Based Women Workers (HBWW) in Pakistan drawing a comparisonbetween the worlds of "work from home" and home-based work. For the post-Covid world, "work from home" is the "new normal", but for HBWW inPakistan it has been the way of life for eons. Across generations, their home is world & world is home. A short film will be shared as a glimpse into theirlives, highlighting their endless toiling for very low wages with their work remaining largely unrecognized not only locally and internationally, but also intheir own domestic spheres. The modalities of working from home for these HBWW will be discussed along with the impact of the world-wide lockdownon their practice and contribution to the informal economy. With COVID-19’s universal regressive effects on the planet, the adversity presented anopportunity for these HBWW. The presentation will discuss one such opportunity- a project called “Uraan” (Flight) designed with the help of KaaravanCrafts Foundation and Textile and Fibre Studies students at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore to provide dignified livelihood for artisans andHBWWs. This new history made through conducting a virtual exhibition in July and November 2020; bringing the world to the homes of these HBWWs,transcended their local ecosystem of production. Through weaving traditional means of making with digital marketing and by familiarizing the HBWW withlive-streaming e-commerce platforms, the project allowed for share-ability, accessibility and desirability- a humble attempt to “raise their wounded worldinto a wondrous one.”
T.J. Dedeaux-Norris: Peace by Piece -Remaking Identities at Home
John Chaich and T.J. Dedeaux-Norris
Throughout their practice, Guam-born, Iowa-based artist T.J. Dedeaux-Norris queers the languages and processes of quilting, painting, paper-making, sculpture, and video in order to reconstruct identities and reclaim agency in an art market, academic sector, and America steeped in misogynoir. While preparing their retrospective T.J. Dedeaux-Norris presents the Estate of Tameka Janean Norris since 2020, the spiritual and physical space that is their artist studio was compromised by natural causes, social pressures, and interpersonal shifts—namely the Derecho storm, the murders of BIPOC Americans at the hands of law enforcement, and the death of loved ones. These natural and interpersonal forces inspired the artist to rebuild their home studio and repurpose materials across their practice into new media such as hand-made paper. In this online studio visit, independent curator John Chaich will Dedeaux-Norris to explore how ways of making have shifted in the home, how the artist brings the home into the external gallery, and how archiving and reconstructing create a sense of personal peace while piecing identities.Video work from Dedeaux-Norris’ practice will be shown and their work included in the upcoming Queer Threads exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles will be previewed.
Choosing to Sew: How women use sewing to respond to disruption
Joanna Dermenjian
In the fall of 1939, Canada joined Britain in the Second World War. Men enlisted in the military, and women began to organize themselves as volunteers to make contributions on the home front. From making jam, collecting cooking grease, salvaging metals and most importantly sewing, knitting and quilting for the war effort, women contributed prolifically with determination and enthusiasm. By 1944, women in Ontario alone had made almost 11 million items for soldiers and the people of Britain, including over 250,000 quilts. Scant research on this topic has been undertaken, and very few women who participated are still alive to interview. In the spring of 2020, women in Canada and around the world rallied to sew face coverings for front-line workers when the international need exceeded the supply. Drawing parallels to women’s 2020 organized voluntary mask making during the current pandemic I examine the WWII quilt making in the context of women’s history and voluntary responses through contributions of stitched articles during periods of social and cultural disruption.
Making Textiles to Invent Life in the Middle of the Colombian Armed Conflict*
Tania Pérez-Bustos and Isabel González Arango
This paper focuses on the deployment of three textile makings undertaken on a daily basis by women who have been victims of the armed conflict in Colombia and who live in the municipalities of Bojayá, Quibdó and Sonsón. Methodologically, this research was based on the realization of 20 textile biographies of women belonging to craft groups and memory sewing circles. This material was analyzed in order to highlight the participation that textile materials and their making have in the configuration of particular forms of resistance on a domestic scale by these women. Throughout the text, were port on the particular ways in which mending, clothing and doll making, and quilting shape everyday possibilities for inventing life in contexts where political violence remains
*This presentation will be in Spanish with simultaneous translation.