The Conscious Sisters: EACH/OTHER community sewing circles in Plymouth, UK
The Conscious Sisters and community respond to Each/ Other project by artists Cannupa Hanska Luger and Marie Watt:
From October and November last year we hosted 10 sewing circles in partnership with Muskogee Creek artist Melinda Schwakhofer and Dakota academic Stephanie Pratt, both of whom live in the UK. Having them lead the sessions helped us create a bridge between these diverse communities. They kindly gave us an insight into their heritage and helped contextualise the question posed by the project:
Can acts of creative collaboration help heal broken bonds with the environment and with each other?
Here are some quotes from contributors:
RACHEL DOBBS
Thanks so much for having me along on Fri for the sewing circle - it was great. I really enjoyed the feel & content of the event, and it felt so much more relaxed and informal just doing some sewing at the same time! Far better than many zoom things I have been part of 😀
I wanted to share with you something that happened for me during the event that I was really struck by.
When Marie, Cannupa & others were introducing themselves and the project, they spoke about the importance of speaking their own indigenous languages and sharing this with others. I've kind of become used to this, through taking part in more events / conversations etc with people of indigenous heritage in the last two years or so, and always love to hear how people introduce themselves and where they are (and the place's relationship to ancestors) in their own tongue.
When this invitation was opened up to all of us, I realised that I have never been encouraged to introduce myself in my own indigenous language (Irish / Gaeilge) before in all my time of living here in Plymouth and felt excited to do this. However, by the time I started to say even the first word in Irish, I got pretty choked up (I'm getting choked up just writing this too!) - it's actually massively emotional! I completely didn't expect this... which is kind of funny, as I'd chosen the feeling of carrying around "home" in your heart (reflecting on what it's like to be far away from home right now, and unable to return at this time, even though Plymouth is very much my home too) for my stitching.
It's got me reflecting a lot on my experiences as an Irish person in this country (a "foreigner" who doesn't really look or sound foreign, because they've successfully assimilated, or because they aren't treated as "foreign" by folks who don't really know Ireland isn't part of the UK etc) and how the smallest of invitations (i.e., to say a few words in your own people's language) is a really giant act. Usually, people just ask you to say things they want to hear as a kind of a joke or expect that you are just going to be saying something in an Irish accent, rather than "in Irish". The invitation Friday eve was a really refreshing and genuinely meaningful change.
SHARON SOPER
In my first week (not week one) I found the conversations around identity and culture and the different ways people chose to introduce themselves from an identity, oppression place really interesting. In the weeks that followed I just enjoyed the creativity with the sewing and found myself more connected with my white mum who sewed and made clothes, and this was very comforting. This Sparked conversations outside with others friend’s connections with sewing, knitting and clothes. My ancestors on my mum’s side were Jewish tailoresses.
I have continued to sew.
Thank you for this special time.
STEPHANIE PRATT
The ‘Each/Other’ project “was a wonderful way for me to feel connected to my original home in the USA and to many people here in the U.K. who I’m friends with but cannot see in person right now. I thoroughly enjoyed making my bandanas too.”
MARGARET MURDOCH
I want to say thank-you- I so appreciated being part of this meaningful project. Though physically isolated, the sewing circle gave me a sense of “belonging” to a community who had a common goal to make a loving and healing connection with the US community. I do hope we achieved our aim of reaching out to heal broken bonds and hope our loving connections continue.