| Description: | Lisa created this memorial textile in response to deaths of black women in the USA at the hands of police. Through these layers of fabric, colours and stitches, she is supporting and adding to the #SayHerName campaign launched in 2014 by Columbia Law School Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw and the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) to highlight and denounce police brutality against black women and girls. According to The Washington Post (2020), 247 women have been killed by police since 2015, 48 of whom were black women, a figure higher than for any other ethnic background.
Whilst George Floyd’s murder by policeman Derek Chauvin rightly sparked outrage around the world, the murders of black and indigenous women in the US, whether by law enforcement or others, rarely make national news. Their deaths are mourned by family and friends, but justice is slow or non-existent for many murdered women, particularly women of color, such as Breonna Taylor (2020) and Sandra Bland (2015). “From the beginning of colonization of north America and continuing today, social systems have been designed to benefit the wealthy and the (white) people in power”. reflects Lisa.
She explains the process of creating this textile and building up the layers, each choice of fabric, each stitch laden with meaning: “The color palette is predominantly indigo blue, red, and pink. Most of the blue fabric is hand dyed with indigo, a cross-cultural and labor intensive way of dying fabric. The indigo fabric here represents specialness, dignity, and betrayed trust. There is a section where the blue fabric is cut away to reveal red underneath; this suggests a trail of wounding, of skin punctured and bleeding. Another section shows layers of fabric peeled away; this represents the idea of cover ups—cover ups of crimes, of racist and misogynistic history, of thwarted justice. The use of red and blue, when mixed, suggests the purple of bruises left on battered and beaten skin. The found objects are symbolic of things that are broken, left behind, lost.
Unlike mainstream media, here each woman is named and remembered with care and attention: “Each name was written on hand-dyed silk ribbon and each uniquely sewed onto the backing using a variety of stitches, with the intent of making each name special and honoring each woman. The use of shades of rose for the names represented tenderness and beauty, and seemed right for this section of the piece.
She is mindful that this list is not exhaustive: “…placing the names at the bottom of the piece means, unfortunately, that more names could be added”.
Her final hope: “.. to amplify Crenshaw’s ‘Say Her Name’, and be an ally in anti-racism, anti-oppression actions for change”, urges us to do likewise within our own communities and spheres of influence. |
