Last week, I came across this amazing video over at Colossal of Beili Liu’s new installation The Mending Project at the (what looks like the amazing) Women and Their Work Gallery.
As you can see from the video, Liu is “mending” cloth while sitting underneath hundreds of Chinese scissors, juxtaposing safety with violence, security with the unknown, and what can destroy with what can (literally) mend.
And from another project this week, one done in solidarity with the Pussy Riot Protest Fence done in Melbourne, Australia by Jacquie Tinkler, a yarnbomber and lecture at Charles Stuart University and Casey Jenkins, a yarnbomber and Craft Cartel member, another Pussy Riot Protest Fence by the Wellington Craftivism Collective!
While at first they may not seem connected, when I happened to look at both projects side by side, a striking connection did, in fact, emerge, when I carefully listened to these words spoken by Liu in the video:
I do think when we’re facing uncertainty and concern and that fear, or when we’re facing very difficult situations in life or in this world, the best thing we can do perhaps is something very simple. And if we can do it with persistence and calmness some change can happen.
I like the idea that “persistence” and “calmness” can foment change, as opposed to speed or anger. Steady pressure, fervent belief, process, intent; these things can bring groundswell, create shifts, deepen fault lines. Whether or not we are underneath hundreds of blades or stitching to fences, we are still helping “change””happen.” We are creating our own realities and paths and truths as we continue to sew, to stitch, to change, to mend.
