Radical stitches: Embroidery gives voice to Latin American activists
| Mexico City
Before the pandemic, Lala Abichain Balberde loved to spend free time embroidering with friends in public squares in her city of C贸rdoba, Argentina. The craft could be meditative, but the highlight was when strangers approached to see what she was working on.
鈥淸I] always adorn things with colors and flowers and it鈥檚 really gorgeous, and people approach and say, 鈥楬ow beautiful is this!鈥欌�� she says. 鈥淭hen they read the text. And it鈥檚 so often just horrible, hideous.鈥�
Ms. Abichain Balberde鈥檚 art is an act of protest, raising awareness about Latin America鈥檚 high rates of violence and femicides. It isn鈥檛 what passersby expect 鈥� and that鈥檚 exactly why 鈥渋t opens up a conversation,鈥� she says.
Why We Wrote This
These women turn stereotypes about needlecraft upside down. In their hands, beautiful sewing is an act of protest against violence 鈥� stitching their pain, resilience, and demands for change.
Embroidery has a long history in the Americas 鈥� a profession once reserved for men, later foisted onto women as a symbol of domesticity. But in recent decades, women have reclaimed the craft as a tool for peaceful, powerful protest, even amid the pandemic.
鈥淰irtual protests鈥� on International Women鈥檚 Day on March 8 invited followers to embroider messages 鈥渇or and by鈥� women, while groups on Instagram聽stitched masks with words or emotions they often feel muted from expressing, like 鈥渇ury鈥� or 鈥渘ot quietly, no.鈥� There are online embroidery conventions, where participants embroider the life stories of victims of violence 鈥� an act of resistance and memory. Others post embroidered art online about colonization鈥檚 ongoing legacy, in hopes of helping others reclaim their culture and history.
There鈥檚 irony, some artists say, in using something so often associated with domesticity to send messages full of anger and frustration 鈥� and empowerment.
鈥淎n innocent practice can convert itself into a weapon that won鈥檛 kill anyone but will teach many,鈥� says Ms. Abichain Balberde. She belongs to an Instagram collective called Des-Bordando Feminismos, made up of women stretching from Chile and Argentina to Mexico.
Powerful stitches
鈥淩aquel Padilla Ramos. A woman who loves, believes, and hopes. Victim of femicide on November 7, 2019,鈥� reads a message embroidered in slanting, fuchsia letters on a white handkerchief, made by a member of the Mexican feminist embroidery collective Fuentes Rojas last year.
A black-lettered embroidery punctuated by orange and green lines 鈥� the same colors of the Mexico City Line 12 metro cars that crashed after an overpass collapsed May 3 鈥� appeared online the morning after the deadly accident, stating simply, 鈥渃orruption kills.鈥�
鈥淚n the face of government abandonment, popular organizing,鈥� says a small sampler embroidered with a boat and floodwaters. Lara Boh贸rquez, of the Instagram account Quiriquitana,聽created the piece in the aftermath of two deadly hurricanes that hit Honduras late last year, amid a sluggish government response.
Since the late 1990s, women in Latin America have increasingly used embroidery to draw attention to acts of violence 鈥� against women, migrants, and citizens caught in the crosshairs of drug trafficking or forgotten by elected officials. Often their work is hung clothesline-style in public squares, or near political marches. Other groups have taken to embroidering political messages while riding public transportation, often sparking conversations with other commuters. But their activism has perhaps become even more visible over the course of the pandemic, as life was pushed indoors 鈥� and online.
Mar铆a Bel茅n Tapia de la Fuente, a Chilean living in Madrid, joined a group of women she met online during the pandemic to talk about the power of embroidery as a political tool.
鈥淭he intention isn鈥檛 to embroider for beauty but for political change,鈥� she says of Des-Bordando Feminismos, made up of roughly 20 women and growing. 鈥淲hat we want to share is the process, the reflection that goes hand in hand with the craft,鈥� she says.
鈥淭he decision to use embroidery is significant because it comes from this 鈥榝emininized鈥� side of things. It鈥檚 not traditionally associated with power,鈥� says Alejandra Mayela Flores Enriquez, who teaches art history at the Iberoamericana University in Mexico City and is completing her doctorate thesis on the history of embroidery and feminism.
鈥淥n the other hand, you put your body into the act of embroidery, your time, your concentration. It carries pain; sometimes it carries literal blood because you get pricked in the process,鈥� she says.
Ms. Tapia de la Fuente sees other elements of power, too. 鈥淲hen you embroider, you often have to undo earlier stitches,鈥� she explains. 鈥淲e are undoing the stitches鈥� that society has sewn to create the current world 鈥� full of violence and inequality 鈥� 鈥渁nd stitching our own stories instead.鈥�
Women鈥檚 work?
Embroidery is often associated with women. But for hundreds of years it was considered 鈥渕en鈥檚 work,鈥� says Ms. Flores.
One of the first professional guilds in Mexico established during Spanish colonization was for embroidery, she says. Its central rule? No girls allowed. But that didn鈥檛 mean women weren鈥檛 creating on their own. Later, the pendulum swung to the opposite extreme, where embroidery became part of what defined a 鈥済ood鈥� girl. It was central to women鈥檚 education, and being a talented embroiderer was linked with being pious, virginal, and a promising mother and wife.
Yet embroidery also gave women a platform, says Ms. Flores, who runs that posts historical examples of embroidery. There鈥檚 evidence embroidery was used to make women鈥檚 voices heard, long before they were viewed as political actors. When Benito Ju谩rez was president of Mexico in the late 1800s, for example, he took steps to diminish the Roman Catholic Church鈥檚 power within government. Many women sent him messages of support 鈥� embroidered onto handkerchiefs.
During the so-called Dirty Wars that ravaged Argentina and Chile in the 1970s and 鈥�80s, activism and embroidery became even more overtly linked. The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina wore handkerchiefs embroidered with information about their missing children and grandchildren. In Chile, where most voices of protest were silenced by intimidation or death, groups of women created arpilleras 鈥� intricately embroidered burlap sacks 鈥� depicting the atrocities taking place during Augusto Pinochet鈥檚 rule. They were exported around the world.聽
鈥淭hey played a really important role because they let people outside of Chile know about the situation,鈥� says Katia Olalde Rico, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Morelia who focuses on the intersection of embroidery and protest. 鈥淚t showed how so many didn鈥檛 take textiles seriously, so they weren鈥檛 an object of censorship. At least at first.鈥�
鈥淎 moment for ourselves鈥�
Ms. Boh贸rquez, who stitched the hurricane sampler, turned to embroidery at a time of personal crisis. She was studying toward her bachelor鈥檚 degree, but 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 feel productive. I didn鈥檛 feel like I was serving society,鈥� says Ms. Boh贸rquez, based in Tegucigalpa, the mountainous capital of Honduras. 鈥淪o I started embroidering.鈥� She found stitching her thoughts and frustrations therapeutic, touching on themes of capitalism, politics, and violence against women. When the pandemic hit she decided to launch Quiriquitana, where she tells the story of Honduras through embroidery: hurricanes, political corruption, violence, lost traditions, Indigenous history.
鈥淓mbroidery can give us tools to think about our lives in a new way. We are putting ourselves out there all the time, but we don鈥檛 give ourselves a moment to evaluate how we feel, what we think, what we are doing,鈥� she says. It鈥檚 easy to get consumed by frustration and anger over the government, or sexism, she adds, but 鈥渆mbroidery can give us a moment for ourselves.鈥澛�
Both embroidery and Latin American women 鈥渁re undervalued, made invisible,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 power in reclaiming that.鈥�
