Exhibitions

Co-Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts & Activism, 2024

Open invitation to anyone, anywhere to take up the needle to co-craft democracy! Open invitation to curate your own show, wherever you are!

A few weeks ago (Sept. 2024), I had a chat with a friend from grad school, Laura Flusche, who is head of the Museum of Design Atlanta. MODA is always doing innovative, community-based things – and we were discussing the co-crafting democracy effort. We talked about my foray into craftivism in 2018 with Hinda, and my ever-firm position that all exhibitions are forms of activism in some way…One thing led to another and we realized that the pitch for Co-Crafting Democracy — the iteration at the Women’s Hall and the upcoming, new iteration to be held here at my home university — can give space for thoughtful discussion, critique, and also healing. Although I don’t see myself as a “maker,” I do see myself as a “convenor” and it is in this spirit that I offer up the notion of “Co-Crafting Democracy” to all. Including you!

Can you make work? If yes, read below! If not, consider how you can bring our idea to your neck of the democracy! You are free to borrow any ideas, even the show name. Just please give a nod to this website/idea. And share your exhibition with me – I’ll post it here!

If you prefer to make than to curate, then please remember to send your work to Rochester Institute of Technology!

Exhibition at Rochester Institute of Technology, fall 2024

The Call for Artists is here. You may submit your work via this Google Form. You must be logged in to Google to submit. Location: University Gallery, Rochester Institute of Technology; Exhibition dates: November 13-December 13, 2024; Opening Reception: Thursday, November 14, 2024, 5-7 pm. Deadline for submission: October 25, 2024.

Consider how you might use your hands to protest social and political inequalities and injustices. I invite all curators, makers, and communities to do their own thing: create and annotate your work with text to respond to the prompt: What role can you play in “co-crafting democracy” leading up to, and following, the 2024 U.S. presidential election? It’s up to all of us to co-craft the democracy in which we live.

For the next iteration, at RIT, the show “Co-Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts and Activism” will be unveiled on November 13, 2024, one week after the U.S. presidential election, at University Gallery on the RIT campus. In a unique twist, exhibition participants will be creating work prior to the 2024 election, but exhibition attendees will be viewing the work for the first time after the election.

All creatives, makers, craftspeople, designers, and artists currently residing in the U.S. are invited to submit work (only one submission per person, please). RIT students, faculty, staff and alumni are especially encouraged to participate and submit work to “Co-Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts and Activism.” Please consider the following guidelines to have your work included in “Co-Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts and Activism:”

1. The dominant medium of the work must be fiber-based.
2. Work must sufficiently address the theme of this call: What role can you play in “co-crafting democracy” leading up to, and following, the 2024 U.S. presidential election?
   NOTE: It is up to each individual submitter to interpret this prompt through their fiber work.
3. Only one work may be submitted by an artist.
4. Work must be created in 2024.
5. Work must not exceed the size of 20 inches X 24 inches (as in 2024!).
6. Work must be accompanied by the following information: artist’s name; city/state location of residency; Instagram handle where appropriate; title of the work; year of the work (must be 2024).
7. Work may be accompanied by a clear, short statement in any format (full sentences, single words, poetry, haiku, emoji) addressing the theme, in 47 words or less: What role can you play in “co-crafting democracy” leading up to, and following, the 2024 U.S. presidential election?
8. Work must be ready to hang (with dowel rod, hooks, Velcro, hanging wire, or other means provided by the artist).
9. Work must be received by October 25, 2024, by either mailing the work to:

Prof. Juilee Decker, Museum Studies Program/CCD Exhibit, RIT College of Liberal Arts, Room 3303-Liberal Arts Building, Rochester, NY, 14623. Or dropped off in person prior to or on October 25.

Exhibition at the National Women’s Hall of Fame, summer 2024. See information about the show here.
Curatorial Statement, July 2024
Five years ago, we organized the exhibition Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts and Activism in Rochester, New York – home to Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass. Works by the 30 artists, included in an eponymous catalogue (RIT Press, 2019, located nearby), explored how handwork probes the vulnerabilities of citizenship status, while also working toward positive social change. From 2019-2020, the exhibit traveled to four additional venues in the Northeast U.S., realizing opportunities for community, conversation, and critique. Crafting Democracy continued to travel and make its way to two sites (Richmond, VA and Geneva, NY) during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, further bearing witness to the ways in which expressions of democracy can persevere and, also, inspire. 

For this current exhibition, we aimed to bring back our idea, and also change it up, a bit. 

As before, we asked makers, creatives, artists and passionate hobbyists to submit work that grapples with our Democratic ideals and may also acknowledge threats to them. Through this exhibition, we are focusing on politically and socially minded craft self-expression through the maker’s mark, honoring individual creativity and handwork skill in service to issues of central Democratic concerns.  

However, with this exhibition, we wanted to democratize the submission process: every work submitted was accepted into the show. Therefore, unlike our previous exhibition which was juried, we wanted to reflect the importance that we each play in co-crafting democracy. Second, we tweaked the title of our exhibition to reflect the “co”-nature. Third, we sought work that had been created only since our previous show. 

Finally, the very site of this exhibition acknowledges the maker’s mark: we are in the historic Seneca Knitting Mill of 1844. The Knitting Mill was active until 1999, and provided union wages to the women who worked there, known for their production of socks and hosiery. Indeed, women worked here; women stitched here; women played a role in democracy here. Further, the Mill’s original two owners signed their name to the “Signatures to the Declaration of Sentiments” at the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention across the Seneca River, visible from the windows nearby.

Co-Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts and Activism debuted on July 12, 2024 as a parallel exhibit in conjunction with Voices and Votes: Democracy in America organized by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. As you walk through this exhibition space, we invite you to look closely, at the granular level, of the individual stitches in each work, and to consider how together they comprise a larger whole, representative of our Democracy. Together, we can stitch a difference. 

– Juilee Decker and Hinda Mandell

See images of the show here: https://juileedecker.com/exhibit/exhibit2/co-crafting-democracy-fiber-arts-activism-2024/.

Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts & Activism (2019-2020)

In late 2017, I began the journey of co-curating the exhibition Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts & Activism with Hinda Mandell. The show opened in Rochester, NY in August 2019 and subsequently traveled — even during the COVID-19 pandemic and the incredible election cycle of 2020. Along the three-year journey, I have learned from the entire community of artists, gallerists, makers, and those who show up — for instance, on a rainy August morning to help with a craft intervention on the site where Frederick Douglass gave his impassioned speech, “What to a Slave is the Fourth of July?”

Whereas Hinda’s strengths are in making and activism as well as deep knowledge of fiber arts, activism, and craft as agency, mine lie in experience as a curator, exhibition organizer, researcher and scholar, as well as editor. We came together to create an exhibition that began as a group exhibition at one venue, accompanied by a gorgeous catalogue featuring every work in the show and essays from makers, scholars, curators. The show has shown no boundaries and continues to garner interest even now in 2021. The venues and recent publicity mentions are below.
*All photographic images shown on this page were taken by Elizabeth Lamark, February 19, 2020.

Exhibiting artists and their works

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On view, Rochester & Monroe County Public Library, August-November 2019

On view August 21, 2019–ongoing, Ancillary Craft Intervention as part of Rochester’s Biennale, Current Seen. While the biennale has concluded, our intervention is still on site. See here.

On view November 29, 2019–January 10, 2020, The Sculpture Center, Cleveland, OH
Curator’s talk with Juilee Decker, Friday, December 6, 2019
Roundtable discussion with co-curators, Saturday, December 14, 2019

On view, February 14—March 14, 2020, Bevier Gallery, Rochester Institute of Technology
Events listed here.

Traveling schedule paused due to COVID-19

August 14—September 14, 2020, Woodlawn & Pope-Leighey House, Alexandria, VA

October 1—December 1, 2020, Davis Gallery at Houghton House, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY
-Curator Talk, Juilee Decker at Hobart & William Smith, October 19, 2020
–Talk by Betsy Greer re: Craftivism, in dialogue with artists from Crafting Democracy, October 29, 2020
–The Fabric of War, film discussion, Friday, November 13, 2020

Supporters of the exhibition include Central Library; the Farash Foundation (for underwriting the catalogue); Friends & Foundation of the Rochester Public Library, RIT’s Museum Studies, School of Individualized Study, School of Communication, the College of Liberal Arts (for the Rochester venues); and Humanities New York (for the installation at Hobart and William Smith).

Together with my co-curator, Hinda Mandell, and gallery director Anna Wager, we created a downloadable bibliography of resources here.

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Article “Craft Activism in the Trump Era on Exhibit in ‘Crafting Democracy’” by Susan Gawlowicz, July 15, 2019.

Article “RIT Professors Organize Yarn Installation in Rochester Aug. 21” by Susan Gawlowicz, July 19, 2019.

Using Yarn Installation to Create a Thread to Rochester’s Social Activism Past by Beth Adams, WXXI News Morning Edition, July 25, 2019.

Article “The Fiber of Democracy” by Smriti Jacob, Rochester Beacon August 5, 2019.

Article “‘Crafting Democracy’ Fights Fire with Fiber” by Rebecca Rafferty, City Newspaper August 6, 2019.

Article “‘Crafting Democracy’ Exhibit in Rochester Shows how Art Can Spark Political Activism” by Robin L. Flanigan, USA Today, special to Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, October 10, 2019.

Mention “On the Bookshelf” by Fiber Art Now magazine

Article “RIT Art Gallery Hosting Traveling Craft Exhibit Borne Out of Political Activism” by Rich Kiley, February 18, 2020.

Opening reception: Crafting Democracy at the Bevier Gallery, Rochester Institute of Technology, February 14 through March 14, 2020 | Gallery Director, John Aasp; Exhibit Coordinator, Shane Durgee. Reception: Wednesday, February 19.

Cited on Pratt’s “Craftivism: An Introduction” LibGuide, May 8, 2020.

Bethany Snyder, “Davis Gallery Hosts Crafting Democracy Events” Hobart & William Smith Colleges, November 2, 2020

If you have a mention that should be listed, please let me know.

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If you are interested in having the exhibition at your venue, please contact me. There is no cost to the show, other than transportation to and from your venue.

To view information about a collaboration with City Art Space in Rochester and Art Bridges Foundation, see here. We aimed to bridge the gap between audiences and participatory art experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic by hosting a series of online events focused on representation, identity, and community.

To view my other exhibition and curatorial practices, click here.