Crafting Dissent: Handicraft as Protest from the American Revolution to the Pussyhats by Hinda Mandell
Can a cloth simply be just that, without an underbed of meaning and matter? Or what is it formed a voice of its own, a protest? Mandell’s anthology here reveals how fabric can be more than fibres. It can strengthen our human times, our social complexities. This title is not directed at a homey cosy audience, it craves the thoughtful, the engaged citizens we can all become if we so desire. I will put it this way, a needle and thread will never be simply observed by you the reader as cold silver and floss again. This is the first title I have come across to speak, of how craft has been used in its many forms to become a tool for historical and current issues, ones not usually associated with this genre.
The book is divided into three sections: "Crafting Histories," Politics of Craft," and "Crafting Cultural Conversations."