Description:
Pussyhats quite literally created a sea of pink the day after Donald J. Trump became the 45th president of the United States in January 2017. But there was nothing new about women crafting as a means of dissent. This is the first book that shows how craft, has also been used as a subversive tool throughout history and up to the present day in 2018.
Brief description: Hinda Mandell is a professor in the School of Communication at RIT in New York, where she was the director of the university's journalism program from 2020-2024. Mandell is editor of this volume, Global Craftivism since the Pussyhats: Handcraft Responses to Violence, War, Illness and Isolation; editor Crafting Dissent: Handicraft as Protest from the American Revolution to the Pussyhats (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019); co-curator and co-editor of Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts and Activism (RIT Press, 2019); a co-editor of Nasty Women and Bad Hombres: Gender and Race in the 2016 US Presidential Election (University of Rochester Press, 2018); the author of Sex Scandals, Gender and Power in Contemporary American Politics (Praeger, 2017); and co-editor of Scandal in a Digital Age (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). As a journalist, her work has been published in Politico, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The LA Times, among other publications. An avid DIY'er who loves to unleash creativity in others, Mandell is the founder of her university's annual Zine Fest. Her scholarly inquiries into collaborative handcraft as change-agents have been published in Craft Research, the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, and forthcoming in the Journal of Feminist Scholarship. She is on the international advisory board of the Journal of Craft & Communities and on the editorial board the International Journal of Sustainable Fashion and Textiles, and her research has been funded by the Center for Craft and Fiber Art Now. In 2020 she was a guest artist with Visual Studies Workshop, whose residency funded the production of her artist book, "The Yarn Must Live: A Polemic on a Pandemic and Public Art," which was acquired by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in 2021. Since 2017, she has organized maker interventions on issues of social reform tied to geographic place reaching 2,000 craft participants. She is also under contract for an upcoming book with Rowman & Littlefield, Crafting Choice: Abortion Politics and Handwork in the U.S. She's been interviewed by The New York Times and The Associated Press, among other global outlets, on the importance of making objects by hand. She is on Instagram: @crochetactivism.
Review Quotes:
"For historians, the blend of the diverse essays is helpful in that it encourages linking past (and the history of crafts used for resistance and activism) to present (successful models of craft for political and economic engagement). This type of connection can only deepen our understanding of the history of craft for activism (or craftivism), and our representation of it in our museum collections and writing. For readers interested in engaging in craft for dissent, the lessons of activist crafting, both in the distant and more recent past, are valuable in making decisions about how to carry out craft-based actions." --New York History
"Hinda Mandell's comprehensive anthology arrives three years after the 2016 U.S. Presidential election and the advent of craftivism's third wave, a ripe time for an in-depth examination of political craft. The talented authors cover a lot of ground -- from early Roman resistance to the Pussyhats of today -- and much like the field's communal ethos, their combined efforts result in a collective potency. Together, the contributors illuminate the many ways in which craft offers agency, cultivates resiliency, and strengthens our social fabric. As a museum curator and engaged citizen, I will be keeping this volume close at hand." --Beth C. McLaughlin, chief curator of exhibitions and collections, Fuller Craft Museum "Refreshingly, the contributors in this volume do not present a tidy, celebratory, step-by-step guide to handmade activism, instead they address the many contingencies of both craftivist discourse and action as they engage with issues of race, class, gender, and power. They show that handwork wielded by engaged citizens has the power to reshape the stories we build our cultures around while simultaneously requiring similarly critical transformation itself." --Sonja Dahl, artist, writer, activist "In a word, empowering. After reading Crafting Dissent: Handicraft as Protest from the American Revolution to Pussyhats I had to spend time reflecting with my needle and thread. This collection of thoughtful essays empowers through its stories of handicraft as it is tied to social justice. Women have had a voice for centuries, but sometimes it has had to be vocalized through their crafty creations." --Sarah Marsom, heritage resource consultant "[C]ontemporary craft scholars, makers, and the general public alike will find this to be a useful book with which to begin seeing dissent as a through line across different temporalities. In particular, communications scholars will find this volume to be a rich resource as this perspective permeates the book both through the editor and many of the authors. Nevertheless, authors from a variety of backgrounds each bring their expertise to bear without using discipline-specific language, which sets an accessible tone. The relatively short chapters and the use of full-color images adds to this approachability." --H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online