Prayers for Women Rising Out of the Patriarchy
Embroidery thread on digitally printed silk organza and domestic linen, mini pegs, jute cord, altar objects
Each prayer flag was made in a daily creative practice throughout 2021. I was immersed in research and facts about men’s entitlement and advantage which was bleak and difficult to process. Each night, I dedicated time to stitch for my own self-care, selecting and making visible the positive words of a woman who was in the media spotlight at that time. As I stitched her words across her portrait, I found some comfort in celebrating a woman who was rising and helping others to rise.
Whether in text, or in the more subversive and secretive morse code, these words capture moments of courage and resilience in stitch. They are 21st century ‘mantra’ in a world where women’s economic equality is regarded as a low priority, at best, and at worst, a threat to men’s financial advantage and entitlement.
“In a patriarchy, women can only rise safely by lifting each other. We rise by making decisions for women, in women’s own interest.”
Design
I was interested in creating a large volume of small “messages” that could represent the whirling energy of women’s voices rising in mainstream media. Morse code appealed to me from a mark-making perspective as well as a representation of encoded speech. The rough dimensions of a flag or postcard were used to guide the framing of each woman’s image. The stitching marks made by running stitch or backstitch were freed from constraint – crossing the image or framing or highlighting parts of it.
Mounting the flags on a simple series of cords references the Tibetan prayer flag tradition and uses the convention of five (rows of flags, pegs per flag, fabric colours) to hold the magical quality of the chant to the fifth Tara in the pantheon of 21 Buddhist goddesses. The installation is centred on a single “21st century mantra” mounted above an altar, and framed overhead by five rows of prayer flags. The mantra is taken from Kate Manne’s book, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women. She writes that “Together we must fight for a world in which every woman and girl is safe and free to be her own person.”
Materials
The prayer flags are made from domestic quality linen and cotton fabric. Each flag is the base for a digitally printed image on silk organza. Cotton embroidery thread is used to embellish the flag with text or morse code. The flags are attached to the jute cord with small wooden pegs. The altar objects are common household objects in the colours of the 5th Tara.