There are few things I love more than seeing the craftivism love spread to other countries, which means I was super excited to see that there was a blog post today over at KYKY.org on craftivism!!!
This is especially exciting to me as in college I studied Russian for 4 years, although I can do little but read Russian phonetically these days… Meaning I almost peed my pants when I saw read “Термин крафтивизм (Ñraftivism) впервые был иÑпользован в 2003 году теоретиком и практиком БетÑи Грир (Betsy Greer).”*
According to its Facebook page, KYKY is a “an on-line magazine which tells its readers about interesting cultural phenomena: music, art, design, fashion, literature and city from Belarusian observer perspective.” Wanna know more about what’s going on in the craft/art/music scene in Belarus? You can also follow KYKY on Twitter over at @kykyorg! Thanks so much, KYKY for writing about craftivism!
What’s fascinating to me are the ways in which different countries and cultures take craftivism and bend its tenets to its own ideosyncrasies, preferences and current situations. And seeing something written about крафтивизм (craftivism) in a language I studied for so long is just so freaking cool I had to share it.
Because using your creativity and your activism in joint force is not an American thing or a British thing or a liberal thing, it’s a universal thing that’s been happening since time began! The term “craftivism” is just an umbrella term to hang the type of work on, as often it’s easier to understand/explain/internalize/share what we’re doing if we have a name to call it.
By giving it a name, we allow ourselves to sink into what we’re doing and let it become a part of our lives and ourselves, truly getting behind the honesty and grit and reality of our work as we work to help the world understand how we see it. Because we know, that it’s not necessarily that we want people to agree with us, it’s that we want people to see how they can use their creativity as their mouthpiece and speak out for what they believe in.
Hence, our actions give others permission to think, make and create as they please. By internalizing the creative process and letting our work speak for us, we become permission givers to those who might have an inkling of an idea of something to make, but aren’t so sure if it’s crazy or stupid or pointless. That’s our whole job as makers, to share with people that it’s okay to feel, to scream, to care, to cry, to laugh, to love.
(Also included in the article are some pretty amazing craftivists like Radical Cross Stitch and Craftivist Collective! Always chuffed to be included with such great and inspiring company!)
*However, if I got it wrong and this is in Belarusian, and not Russian, someone please let me know!!