Stories of fighting women and magic plants : empowerment through embroidery , feminism and nature
From 2014 to 2020 the association Auberfabrik, drives an ambitious project of women empowerment mobilizing traditional textile handcraft culture. The association is based in a french city of Paris suburb, challenged by poverty and immigration. The collective embroidered work focus on inspiring women figures and totem plants and ended in an exhibition in the city hall. Sharing moments of embroidery between participants, (mostly women) build for them a strong sense of community belonging.
Local
France
Paris suburban :Ile de france
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2020-11-09
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Auberfabrik Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Sylvie Last name of representative: Napolitano Gender: Female Nationality: France Function: Coordinator of social cultural projects Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 15 impasse du pont blanc Town: Aubervilliers Postal code: 93300 Country: France Direct Tel:+33 6 52 58 17 01 E-mail:auberfabrik@gmail.com Website:http://auberfabrik.com/
The project emerge from common of publics structures (Everybody House Berty Albrecht) and Auberfabrik organization seeing that women are a blind spot of inclusion politics. Convinced that art and aesthetics are a strong lever to build a sense of belonging within local communities and offers a way for empowerment, an ambitious program was set up weaving handicrafts, textile traditions, feminism and botanic. The starting point was talking circles for women where the place of women in the daily life was discussed. Then, participants were given the opportunity to discover the life of inspiring women figures whom names are used in the city streets. In this way, the city became first a space of connection with other women, fighting for rights or dignity. To go further in this reappropriation, women were proposed then to embroider a women gallery, choosing their favorite figure, and including it in a collective patchwork. As embroidery and patchwork is a slow and long process, necessitating new and expert knowledge such as precise stitches , the project contributes to build for the participating women, a sense of belonging and reinforce inner dignity. The choice of an activity perceived as feminine and thus, devaluating, was part of the process of rehabilitation and empowerment. The climax of project was the consecration of this collective work by an exhibition discovered on the 8th of march, which is the day of the women rights, hosted in public spaces of the city : invisible women became at this moment artists celebrated by the city itself.
The project lasted 7 years with different themes
- Inspiring women figures :Femmes résistantes
- Embroidered jewels : Parures , which were sold during events like Foire des savoir-faire
- A tale about men/women equality ," Toi, moi, nous" , written by them.
- Sashiko : discovery of a japanese traditional embroidery
- Embroidered herbarium : "L'herbier de soi"
Each part of the project was exhibited in public spaces .
women
empowerment
embroidery
feminism
community
Project key objectives in term of sustainability was to promote traditional handicraft as a medium to create a new culture for nowadays. Far from technological or high tech approach, embrodery and textile technics, patchwork but also knitting, crochet, dying stood for examples of sobriety in culture and art. Far from a nostalgic point of view, the aim first was so to show that old technics could be used to reappropriated, reinvented, to deal with and to give voice to contemporary issues. The second aim was to offer to people tools and technics for a possibly autonomous artistic practice in circular and low tech approach : dyieng could be done with very common plants, patchwork could reuse old fabrics in an artistic way. In this way, the projet was an exemplary demonstration of what can be a frugal artistic culture that spare ressources of the planet and promote sharing values.
Project key objective in terms of aestetics and quality of experience was to enable participants to become true artists without regarding their background or abilities. The project was conceived as a place of discovery and training of everything that was necessary to the collective work. Furthermore,it was the opportunity for them to share their own cultural practice, teaching each others their different skills.The focus was put on empowerment in a positive context to gather people from multicultural background and to make art a space for meeting and constructing sense of belonging. In this way, even if there were no ambitions in terms of technical mastery of stiches etc. , the final realization had a true artistic dimension, totally relevant for an exhibition. This exhibition, highlighting the collective work contribute gave a strong sense of proudness to the participants and they are, from now, still active in the city.
The aim of the project was to set up light on women daily lives and the way they experience their city and how it has an impact on how they feel. Women place in urban context struggling with social issues is difficult. The objective of this embroidery project was so to contribute to more beautiful, sustainable and inclusive places in local communities. In this perspective, art was used as a tool to offer to people far from culture a space of liberty and personnal growth meanwhile it created better living condition by reshaping the experience of the city, modifying urban imaginaries and highlighting modest women as great artists, giving voice to political figures through handicraft. For instance, during the project, the women were offered to embroider in different places as such as social center, a public cultural café, a garden. Thus, search for exemplarity led the whole process and could be seen precisely in : the medium choosen, accessible and familiar (or perceived so) for these kind of publics ; the liberty given to individual choice (technics, subject) in a collective work ; the close relationships with institutions and publics structures ; the duration of the project which pay attention to preserve a smooth an peacefull process, respectfull for participants.
First, the choice of embroidery as a media helped first to reinforce locally an interest for handicraft as a modern artistic medium and helped new people, in a more inclusive way, to local artistic dynamics that were already present. Textile craft became from now part of the local identity. Secondly, the choice of feminine figures whose names are used for the city streets and after, highlighting as inspiring figures contribute to underline the strong commitment of local and public institutions for women rights. The artistic exhibitions made concrete that gender equality, more than political program, is the base for new culture and values.
The project took care to associate closely other stakeholders, specifically, public institutions. As the project was local, the stakeholders engaged were local, but of different kinds. First, the project was built in strong association with a district house, La Maison pour tous Berty Albrecht, dedicated to family issues, children activities , advices for education. Thanks to this collaboration, the project could be truly inclusive, integrating in an artistic program people that standard cultural policies couldn't traditionnaly reach. Secondly, as the city supported the project, the final collective realization could be exposed in the bigger cultural space of the city during several months. Both of these implication allowed the project to be both ambitious regardin
The project was conceived with a truly interdisciplinary orientation as it mixed sociology, art and popular education. Sociological perspective was operated by one member of the organization and it helped to build the project on an objective base, free from ideological or political consideration. This worked as a set of guidelines in order to meet the future participants and helped to build an grass root and horizontal approach. Thus, the dialog with the public structures has been very rich and could explore other paths for public action, slightly different from operationnal methods and traditionnal top down policies. Finally, the focus on art, culture and handicraft without the idea of performance, brought together the inputs from sociological gaze and public expertise and articulated them in a sensible approach where it is horizontal aesthetics that build an equal and sustainable community.
Five major trends drove the projects each with specific impacts and outcomes targeted. As the project was mainly artistic, a large place for qualitative indicators was preserved in parallel to quantitative datas. The first result the project tended to was building an living artistic community in a disadvantaged area characterized by the lack of cultural offer. As this community would be composed of members of the city, it would then help to impulse new dynamics in adequacy with the local public. The project was really successfull as the attendance to the activities, during the project and after, could show around 250 participants.The second outcome targeted was to reach people out of the ordinary scope of public policies : this could be easily shown with the help of datas collected during the project (): the publics of the project were mainly mature women (40-60 y.o), in charge of children, sometimes partially non francophone, belonging to so-called minorities (Maghreb immigrants ; sub saharan Africa ; eastern Asia), dealing with strong social issues and who are ordinarily deprived of cultural offer or time for hobbies. The third impact this project strives to achieve was to give to these publics the opportunity of a qualitative and cultural training without performance and efficiency perspective so as it gave personal growth and empowerment. The high artistic quality each person reaches in her production, documented by photos, is a clear sign of the success of the project. The fourth target of the project was to address a transgenerational scope through artistic activity. The organization is proud to say that meanwhile a huge part of the project was dedicated to a feminine target, another one focused on teens with the writing and embroidering of a short story about gender issues. Finally, the fifth aim of the project was to contribute to the local life providing artistic activities and one major exhibition, which was shown during 6 months . (see datas enclosed)
The project distinguished itself by a true and deep innovative character in comparison with other actions. First, intending to address social issues such as integration (linguistic, cultural etc.) it chose as main tool art devices and media whereas other actions choose an educational perspective. Secondly, in the wide scope of public policies dealing with social issues, a clear focus is put on measurable, objective and operational training, for example, for language acquisition. The project chose on the contrary an empowerment approach where the liberty given to participants in an artistic activity draw a path for true autonomy and emancipation. Third, regarding public social policies, one can see a clear accent on youth. Nethertheless, other people, such as mature women are key actors in these deprived communities, but more invisible. The choice to design the project activity first for these invisible women is then a way to outreach traditional choices in social policies.
As the project follows an artistic approach, the methodology chosen was mainly qualitative, that is to say that no progression plan, diplomas or certificate were delivered during the program. The focus was put on the participants artistic growth and on the realization of a collective work of art for the exhibition. Thus, no course was strictly set up : the artistic process gave a large place to the participants' knowledge, to peer instruction and techniques sharing and the organizators acted only as resource persons to go further, correct if felt necessary etc. Few quantitative datas were collected only to have a basic monitoring of the project and to give transparent feedbacks to the stakeholders.
This project offers huge opportunities for transfer and reduplication in a creative way that takes into account the local communities. As it combined through a vertuous process of design and ideation, social and local needs, artistics talents and tools available among the organisation, others places and communities could inspire themselve of the project to work following an artistic approach , on inclusion. The focus on handicraft is a key aspect as it conveys a more accessible vision than institutional culture : indeed, for these publics, handicraft could echoe more easily to their cultural background and doesn't refer to ceiling glass issues. Through handicraft taken in a wide range of traditional practices, one can invite deprived people to join an ambitious creative, artistic process. The choice of an horizontal pedagogy, inspired of popular education movements, is also a central element as it conveys a strong sense of equality among participants and thus set path for the building of dynamic community. Finally, the strong commitment of the institutions by offering spaces for a long lasting exhibition, but without a monitoring perspective regarding the project itself was a determining element for the success of the project.
Our world is dealing with major global challenges to achieve ecological transition. This project had the ambitious the seize them and to provide local solutions. One major challenge for achieving transition is to think new urban life and particularly culture. One trend of the past decades was to promote a globalized culture which was centralized in huge urban spots, very concentrating. It creates needs of transports, financial issues sometimes very carbonized. Thus, the promotion of a very local culture, made by inhabitants is a true answer to make culture near, close and accessible. Secondly, our lives are more and more based on technological products with a heavy cost in terms of ecology. So putting the emphasis on the rediscovery of traditional handicraft, handmade, slow, in dialogue with modern questions (feminism etc.) is a way to promote, in parallel with technological solutions, a sober and low tech approach to make our lives more human and sustainable.
