Privilege
I’ve been having a few conversations recently with people about privilege. Mostly about how people in our communities benefit from privilege yet refuse to acknowledge this or don’t know how. It’s not an easy thing to recognise that there’s stuff you don’t have to deal with if you’re non-Indigenous or male or able bodied or whatever. But when it really comes down to it we need to recognise and challenge this privilege if we want to make some decent changes within our communities.
And as often seems to happen when I have an issue popping up in conversation a lot, a really good article on the topic pops up in my RSS feeds!
I highly recommend you take five minutes and read this article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh. It is superbly written and is a real make you think-er.
I think it’s a really interesting exercise to go through for anyone wanting to question privilege and how it works on their own life. Especially for those of you out there wondering why we’ve managed to remove most of the overt legal forms of discrimination yet the statistics still show a massive bias towards the able bodied straight white guy. Our behaviours as humans are so habitual and discrimination and privilege are definitely creatures of habit!
I’d love to hear what anyone else thinks about this article.
Incidentally, I found this article on the Women’s Creative Collective blog which I recently came across and it’s fecking excellent, you should read it too!
Radical Rainbow Seed Sharing
In the weekend I had the joy of attending my first Rainbow Serpent Festival. It’s one of the biggest remaining trance festivals in the world and it was pretty freaking cool. Probably a wee bit trendy for me, but hey, being able to get out in the bush, catch up with friends and check out some sunrises is never an opportunity to turn down.
What surprised me was the absolute lack of consciousness, both in the music and in the people. I came out of the festival at the end thinking I shouldn’t slag off baby boomers any more. Not only did I see fuck all of anything encouraging people to rethink our existence as human beings on this planet but quite the opposite. It was a giant consumer fest. From the pay showers in town on the way in to the refill strappy drink bottles..
It was billed to me as a place for cultural exchange but it’s not really what I saw. And don’t even get me started on the ‘Ta-dah!’ trance…
Anyway, while I was out there I was keen to spread some love and spread some good conscious vibes. So I decided to make some seed packs to share. I made about twenty of these packs and stuck them in little nooks and crannys where I knew people would find them.
They each contained three beans and this little note:
Hopefully some of the good little consumers found them and it awakened some brain cells. Especially the woman I handed one to out the car window on our way out. I think she thought I was giving her drugs. Hope she was pleasantly surprised.
I do have a couple left so any Melburnians out there who want one, email me your address and I’ll flick one your way. Sorry I can’t send them any further than that, being plant material and all…
And here’s some more Rainbow pics!
SALE!
Check it out folks, it’s the long awaited “WORLD HAS A NEW LEADER, NEARLY REACHED 100 SALES, AND I NEED NEW BUSINESS CARDS” SALE!!
50% of all patterns
20% off everything else including Hoopla!
(excludes fundraising stuff)
plus fun free bonus stuff for all customers.
For a limited time, get in quick.
Thanks to all Radical Rags customers, you guys rock
Some finished stuff!
The thing I love the most about designing patterns is seeing what other people do with them. I haven’t seen any finished ones in a while but I just got two in two days!
Firstly, Megan bought the Question Authority pattern the other day and finished it already! Quickest stitcher in the world award I reckon! And it looks great
Looks cool in that frame too! Which incidentally is way more organised than me on that front..
Also Hali has finished the Firefox pattern!
It’s beautifully stitched and looks gorgeous on the ivory fabric. Yay Hali!
Being oppressed means the absence of choices
I’m re-reading bell hooks’ Feminist theory: from margin to center right now, hence this small portrait of her. I’m thinking about removing it from the frame & making it into a patch to put on a t-shirt instead (just have to find a suitable tee).
For those of you that don’t know, bell hooks (or Gloria Jean Watkins, which is her real name) is an American writer, feminist & scholar that deals with the relationship between sexism, racism & class. I like they way she challenges the contemporary idea of feminism as a movement & an expression that could mean just anything, depending on who defines it. According to hooks, feminism must be “the struggle to end sexist oppression” & that means that the dominant liberal feminism of today, that doesn’t deal with class issues, can never be real feminism. She is relentless in her assault on white, middle class feminists (hey, that’s me!) & the movements unwillingness to acknowledge & analyze it’s own racism & class issues. But at the same time as she advocates a raging criticism against how white feminists have excluded & marginalized black women or other ethnic groups & made their own strive for equality with privileged white men the goal, she’s very clear on what has to be done: a turn towards companionship, solidarity & bonding between women (a bond that does not have it’s roots in an imagined shared role as “victim” or “oppressed”, but in shared strength & resources). She’s even written a book that is all about love. I’d really recommend reading bell hooks to anyone who’s interested in the ways that sexist, racist & class oppression works together & has to be challenged together.
Cross posted from cross yr stitches.
Up in the sky
You should definitely come to this. I have Shelley’s diary for 2009 and it’s truly gorgeous. It actually organises me (kinda) which is quite something!
I’m gonna try and make it, hope to see you there.
Some inspiration
Righto, before I head of on my deferred christmas break, here’s some lovely impressive stuff I’ve found over the last few days.
Firstly, one of the best campaign ideas I’ve seen in a long time. Members of Surfaid (conscious surfers rule!) in collaboration with Saatchi and Saatchi collected a whole lot of rubbish off the beach, sorted it and packaged it to sell at the local farmers market.
I think what’s most important about this campaign is that it really drives home how quickly the little bits of rubbish add up. Also intriguing the involvement of Saatchi and Saatchi in this campaign. It would be nice to see more of the big marketing and advertising companies doing work for environmental and social causes.
props shape + colour
Continuing on the environmental theme is this genius piece of site specific art in Milwaukee
Great one for getting the kids aware!
props Wooster
Finally for a bit of old school inspiration is these lovely Great Depression inspired posters commissioned by ReadyMade magazine
You can check out all 5 and download them here.
Thanks Cate!!
Some reasons to go handmade this year
It’s good for your local economy (by bugsandfishes)
It’s good for your friendships (you can get your own one of these prints at Mikes!)
It’s good for raising awareness (go the South Carolina Quilters!)
It’s much, much funnier! (buy this here)
QRacks in the Land
Just before Christmas I was approached and asked to participate in The Streets of Melbourne Festival. It’s the first time this Festival has been run and it’s been designed to showcase and celebrate street culture. Be it dance, performance, music or art. The Festival was run over three days in Federation Square in Melbourne.
I decided to use the opportunity to experiment with some ideas I’d been having about large scale cross stitch works.
Given that Federation Square is a privately run space, I was a bit limited in what I could do in terms of overt political statements. So I decided to go covert.
I’ve been working on stitching QR Codes for some time now. I’ve been doing them on regular Aida fabric (14 count mostly) and they’ve been working really well. So I decided to do it large scale. This project was stitched with black and white finger knitted wool and stitched on animal fencing (which is tough to work with but has a lovely strong and square grid).
QR Codes, or Quick Response Codes are an open source mobile phone read bar code type technology which originated from Japan (download the free reader here). While the Japanese tend to use QR codes for communicating public service information ie public transport timetables. The introduction of QR Codes to Australia has largely been based in advertising (ugh).
So I’ve been working QR Codes in cross stitch as a way of exploring non-corporate alternatives to this potentially very interesting and useful communication medium.
The piece designed for The Streets of Melbourne is designed to make a very clear statement on the irony of a privately owned and operated city square. A space that, within Western culture, has traditionally been the primary space for free speech. And of course this space in particular is part of the traditional gathering grounds for the people of the Kulin Nations.
It is to the Kulin Nations that this piece, QRacks in the Land, is dedicated.
A very special thanks to Emma for support in making this happen!
