The power of needlework: how embroidery is helping South African women tell unspeakable stories

• Also in its 2019/2020 crimes statistics, the South African Police Services indicated that an average of 116 rape cases were reported each day.
• While South Africa’s GBV crisis is not new, it was exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, which made the perpetual challenges faced by many women and gender non-conforming individuals hyper visible.
• This visibility sheds light on the reality that the home is a complex space where care and violence can co-exist.
• All of this happens behind closed doors, often robbing women of a voice to express their fear, suffering and pain.

Everyday violence

• Through depicting their lived experiences of gender trauma, women can have an outlet for their pain.
• While their embroideries serve as a canvas for the outpouring of pain, loss and trauma, their work also tells stories of hope, resilience and resistance.
• The aim was to highlight the multi-layered ways in which gendered violence is woven into everyday encounters.
• We sought to engage the ways in which creative meaning could be made of GBV in our communities – and how the challenges facing our society because of gendered violence could be given attention.

Perpetual fear

• The embroideries depict a society where fear is manufactured, created, and produced by patriarchal and unjust structural violent systems.
• This in turn leads to women living in perpetual fear; they cannot feel safe within and outside of their homes.

Staring reality in the face

• They are a challenge to the viewer to stare the violence in the face with the hope that they will be compelled to reflect and to act.
• The embroideries have been displayed at an art exhibition where the public could attend and engage with the pieces.