The Ella's Daughters' Social Justice Quilt Project
The Ella's Daughters' Social Justice Quilt Project
In collaboration with individual activists and organizations dedicated to social justice and social change.
A quilted patch is vestige of wholeness that stands as a sign of loss and challenge to creative design. As a reminder or remnant, the patch may symbolize rupture and impoverishment; it may be defined by the faded glory of the already gone. It constitutes survival strategy and a response to chaos.
We view Ella Baker and ourselves as political quilters. In honor and admiration of Baker's dedication to social justice and social change, Ella's Daughters has begun our own political quilt project. Unlike Baker's metaphoric quilt, ours is materially tactile in nature. Through the use of various images and textiles, this quilt represents our way of weaving together the many individual and collective efforts and achievements our community members and organizations have made. Together, one stitch at a time, we all are working towards one collective goal that is a socially just world for ourselves, our families, our communities and the world. This quilt is a visual documentation of our histories, testimonies, advocacy work, challenges and many, many accomplishments.
Ella's Daughters invite each of you to participate in this visual documentation. We place no restrictions on the types of fabric you may wish to include. For example, one may wish to submit a swatch from a faded wash towel, a towel used while you were a resident at a domestic violence shelter, or a swatch from your grandmother's favorite sweater. In regards to your inclusion, your individual creativity is both encouraged and welcomed!
Our only requirement is that the swatch be at least 6x6 inches, and no larger than 8x8 inches. These swatches may be delivered to us personally or through the mail. If it is a photographic image that you wish to include, it may be sent in jpeg format via email. We do ask that you include a brief statement about yourself and your particular focus, as well as an explanation of why your swatch is significant to you. Like the AIDS Quilt Project in the 1990s, we hope this artistic initiative will bring attention to the vast amount of social justice organizing that is underway, and will have a major visual and visceral impact.
The Ella's Daughters quilt will be displayed at our various events, so that others may view our continuous work in progress. In the near future, we plan to host quilting workshops where individuals may participate in the quilt's assembly. This is an exciting endeavor for Ella's Daughters and we welcome all to participate. "Yes, this is the work of movement building. Quilters work."