Craftivism on BBC Four: "Can you use craft to help make the world a better place, one stitch at a time?"
Click on picture for BBC4 show, or here
It’s great to see something from the “progressive margins” (as one of our colleagues put it this week), and which we’ve promoted in these pages, land pretty close to the mainstream. Such has happened with craftivism, which turned up a week or so ago as the theme of a documentary on BBC4, fronted by comedian Jenny Eclair. Their blurb is below:
Can you use craft to help make the world a better place, one stitch at a time? Writer, comedian and art lover Jenny Eclair meets people doing extraordinary things with knitting, cross-stitch, banners and felt to change hearts and minds.
Hearing stories from craftivists around the UK and beyond, Jenny visits Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire to see how miniature knickers are discreetly placed around the town to encourage screening for cervical cancer, and learns how felt 'graffiti' has a wellbeing message for visitors to a London park.
From banners at Liverpool Football Club's Anfield Stadium to a huge memorial quilt remembering those who lost their lives to Aids, the initiatives all have one thing in common: a painstaking, thoughtful and beautiful way to get heard.
More here. In our pieces on craftivism, we quoted its founder Sarah Corbett, from her TED talk:
For the introverts among us, traditional forms activism like marches, protests and door-to-door canvassing can be intimidating and stressful. Take it from Sarah Corbett, a former professional campaigner and self-proclaimed introvert. She introduces us to "craftivism," a quieter form of activism that uses handicrafts as a way to get people to slow down and think deeply about the issues they're facing, all while engaging the public more gently. Who says an embroidered handkerchief can't change the world?
…So I've got two calls to action, for the introverts and for the extroverts. For the ambivert, you're involved in all of it.
For the extroverts, I want to say that when you're planning a campaign, think about introverts. Think about how valuable our skills are, just as much as extroverts'. We're good at slowing down and thinking deeply, and the detail of issues, we're really good at bringing them out. We're good at intimate activism, so use us in that way. And we're good at intriguing people by doing strange little things that help create conversations and thought.
Introverts, my call to action for you is: I know you like being on your own, I know you like being in your head, but activism needs you, so sometimes you've got to get out there. It doesn't mean that you've got to turn into an extrovert and burn out, because that's no use for anyone, but what it does mean is that you should value the skills and the traits that you have that activism needs. So for everyone in this room, whether you're an extrovert or an introvert or an ambivert, the world needs you now more than ever, and you've got no excuse not to get involved.