Panel Statement
Panel: Patchwork Panel: Conceptualising Seams that Separate and Stitch Together
This presentation is a means of conceptually examining the sewing circle as under cover method to induce power into an unequal power structure. I will introduce historical as well as artistic predecessors. Historically, the sewing circle seems to have been used disguising power under the cloak of meeting for an ostensibly lesser cause while really discussing important matters. Women have created semi-secret discussion groups, let the men have the formal power, but not formally renounced the power of influence. The sewing society is another example of a covert public realm where women have turned the unpaid time to benefit the community. It is more open in form than the closed circle and is known to have existed in Sweden at least since 1840. Throughout the twentieth century this labour has been professionalised within handicraft associations while lately venturing into relational aesthetics. During the presentation I will exemplify with some of the many contemporary artists who have continued to use the under cover method of the sewing circle as well as the power to transform private household chores into public art.
- Dr. Johanna Rosenqvist completed her PhD in Art History and Visual Culture, at Lund University in 2007. Her dissertation interrogates the institutional boundaries of Art through examining the aesthetics of sexual difference in the case of Swedish Handicraft of the 1920s and 1990s. Since 2007 she has been teaching Design and Art History and Visual Culture at Linnæus University, Växjö, Sweden where she is tenured Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor. Presently Rosenqvist is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Cultural Sciences at Lund University, researching performative aspects of arts and crafts. As KOEFF her artistic practice lies in producing noise and performing at venues mainly in Sweden but also in Germany and China.