Stitching the Story Fabric: Collective Loss and Catharsis

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This project will creatively engage with the women's craft community of the quilting bee, reframing the pervasive perception that they are performinghobbywork, a non-innovatory textile busywork (Chave, 1992) and a 'gentle and domestic art...' (Isaac, 1987). In doing so, relocating quilting from the hiddenstream (Collin & Sandell, 1984) of everyday life and introduce the quilt as a valuable academic resource which holds the indexical trace (Pierce, 1965) of women's lived experience. This research will address the idea of the needle as a gendered tool (Goggin, 2016) that keeps women docile andmindlessly daydreaming (Freud, 1893), and engage with the notion of quilting as a craft that can be subversively powerful (Jefferies, 2011) and exercised politically (Robertson, 2014). The project will explore the community of quilting as one drawn together by loss (Sturken, 1997; Stalp, 2020) acting as a site of healing (Boise Peace Quilt, 1984; Mothers Dream Quilt, 2014) for its members.