Students design quilt patches that support normalizing prostitution, abortion
A Penn State University gender studies class recently created a talking “Reproductive Justice Cyber Quilt” with patches that advocate for various issues, including abortion, the normalization of prostitution, and “Palestinian liberation.”
Students at the public institution completed the project for the class “Sex, Gender and the Body,” according to an article published this week by the university news.
Maggie-Rose Merry Condit-Summerson, a PhD. candidate who teaches in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, said students make “feminist reproductive justice” quilts instead of doing a final exam.
Condit-Summerson said she has been doing the project with her students for the past three semesters.
For the most recent “Reproductive Justice Cyber Quilt,” (pictured) her class designed patches, first digitally and then on fabric, using sewing machines, fabric dying, and graphics design programs, according to the report.
“Sex work is real work,” one patch reads. Another says, “Shout your abortion.”
Others include a “Palestinian liberation” square with a watermelon, a rainbow flag encircling the phrase “Love is love” on another, and a pink cartoon-style uterus with a face under the words “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries” on another patch.
The students’ quilt design also is displayed online – and it talks.
According to the article:
In the class project’s final steps, students recorded audio reflections and wrote artist statements about their contributions to the quilt. These reflections were layered over an image of the quilt using the platform ThingLink, creating an interactive and shareable digital version of the project. This unique combination of physical and digital media enabled students to creatively convey their messages on reproductive justice while gaining hands-on experience with maker technologies.
The quilt is a “lovely representation of the values and practices of feminist community,” Condit-Summerson told the university.
The overall idea behind the project is to encourage students to “creatively convey their messages on reproductive justice while gaining hands-on experience with maker technologies,” according to the report.
Condit-Summerson said students get to “experience working in an interdisciplinary way and consider the many forms that their research might take.”
Others at the taxpayer-funded Pennsylvania university also have been using textiles and crafting projects to advocate for progressive issues.
Vagner Mendonça-Whitehead, the director of the school of visual arts, is working on a “house-sized” knitted “structure” to advance “anti-racism,” The College Fix reported recently.
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IMAGE: Penn State University Women’s Studies/ThingLink
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