The Subversive Stitch Revisited

Abstract

This chapter proposes a substantial shift away from understandings of sewing as a gendered, individual, domestic activity, theorized most notably by Rozsika Parker in her 1984 book, The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine. While acknowledging Parker's important contributions to the study of sewing by women in Europe and Britain, it reflects critically on her lack of attention to class, race, and geography. The chapter proposes new and more inclusive understandings of the subversive stitch, considered through projects by artists Aram Han Sifuentes and Carole Frances Lung. Han Sifuentes uses sewing to call attention to discrimination against immigrants, and to help alleviate the isolation many experience. She sees the US Citizenship Test Sampler as a project that builds community among increasingly vulnerable populations of noncitizens in the US. Today's subversive stitches are just as likely to be sewn in public by groups of people sewing together.

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