Rozsika Parker’s The Subversive Stitch (1984) charts how stitching was gradually feminized and relegated to the domestic sphere in Great Britain. As one of the first contemporary studies on gender and sewing from the Middle Ages to the present day, this influential book transformed our approach to traditional needlework, reconsidering it as a meaningful medium that reflects stories of both women’s oppression and liberation.
Organized in the context of the exhibition Locating Girlhood: Place and Identity in Early American “Schoolgirl” Art which repositions samplers as a vital form of expression in early America, the program “The Subversive Stitch Revisited” discusses Parker’s feminist reframing of sewing in a larger, globalized context. Bringing together artists Spandita Malik and Elina Chauvet and critical writer L Vinebaum, this conversation will highlight the cultural and political significance of traditional needlework in our present time. This is an opportunity to address issues of domesticity, femininity and women’s resistance through the lenses of labor, migration, and race.
About the Speakers
L Vinebaum is a transdisciplinary researcher, critical writer, artist, curator and educator. They work at the intersections of contemporary art and textile politics. They often write about contemporary artists who use fiber materials and techniques to draw attention to pressing social issues, foster community, and advocate for social, economic, and racial justice. Their essays on contemporary fiber/textiles are included in major edited volumes internationally, including their chapter “The Subversive Stitch Revisited” in A Companion to Textile Culture (Wiley-Blackwell, 2020). Other publications include essays in Makers, Crafters, Educators: Working for Cultural Change (Routledge, 2020), Exhibiting Craft and Design: Transgressing the White Cube Paradigm 1930-present (Routledge 2017), and the cultural journals Dilettante Army and Counter-Signals.
L Vinebaum is curator, with Isaac Facio, Nneka Kai and Anne Wilson, of On Loss & Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival, exhibited in the Textile galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago from September 2025–March 2026. The exhibit was accompanied by a scholarly book edited by Vinebaum, Facio, Kai, and Wilson. Also titled On Loss & Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival (2025), the book is the first to explore the role of textiles in helping humans across cultures negotiate loss and grief.
L Vinebaum is an Associate Professor of Fiber and Material Studies, and affiliated full-time faculty in the department of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They hold a PhD from Goldsmiths, the University of London (UK).
Spandita Malik (born in 1995) is an Indian visual artist living and working in New York City. Her work addresses the current global socio-political state of affairs, with a focus on women’s rights and gendered violence. Malik specializes in process-based photography, particularly photographic surface embroideries and collaborations with women in India. Her work in expanded documentary and social practice consciously emerges from the idea of decolonizing the eye and the aesthetic surrounding documentary photography in India.
Malik’s work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Arts, the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, 21c Museum Hotels, Rockefeller Capital Management, Jane Lombard Gallery, and the Sharjah Art Foundation, among others. She has received prestigious awards, grants and residencies, including the V&A Parasol Foundation Prize, The 30: New and Emerging Photographers Award, the Firecracker Photographic Grant, the Baxter St Workspace Residency, and the PES Feminist Incubator Residency. Malik’s work has been featured in The British Journal of Photography, Buzzfeed, Crafts Magazine, Elephant Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, Marie Claire, The Guardian, The Times (UK), and The Washington Post.
She received her MFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design in 2019.
Elina Chauvet is a multidisciplinary artist born in 1959 in Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico. She studied architecture at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez, then taught herself to paint. Through her research and production, she explores social processes and violence against women.
She is the creator of the public art installation Zapatos Rojos (Red Shoes), a project launched in 2009 in Ciudad Juárez, in the state of Chihuahua. With more than 500 installations in fifteen years, this ongoing work has traveled conceptually across many countries including Argentina, Australia, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Israel, to name but a few. The work created on March 8, 2017, is part of the collection of the Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove di Metropoliz – Città meticcia in Rome.
In 2022, Chauvet’s work was exhibited in the exhibition El Corazón Aúlla (The Heart Howls). Latin American Feminist Performance in Revolt, organized by Alexis Heller and Tatiana Muñoz Brenes at the 8th Floor Gallery in New York, and supported by the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation. Her work was also featured in the project “Compartir es Vivir” (Sharing is Living) in the city of Marín (Pontevedra), Spain, a MUPIS project in public space, with a replica at the Women’s Museum in Mexico City in January 2024.
Another recent notable participation dates back to 2023, when she collaborated with the French haute couture house Maison DIOR and was included in the DIOR Gallery exhibition celebrating Dior’s collaborations with women artists such as Judy Chicago, Katerina Jebb, Yuriko Takagi, and Niki de Saint Phalle (from November 23, 2023, to May 24, 2024).
Images
Left: Rachel Barrett (1833–?), Sampler, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1845, Silk and wool on. Linen, 16 7/8 x 12 1/2 in. Cultural History Collection, Nova Scotia Museum, Halifax, 2018.14.1
Middle: Elina Chauvet, Limpiar no es trabajar (Cleaning is not working), 2023. Cotton embroidery on fabric. Courtesy of the artist.
Right: Spandita Malik, Mumma, 2020. Sun-printing, zardozi and gotta-patti on khadi fabric, 30 x 25 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Registration
Space is limited; advance registration is required. Please consider making a donation when you register to support ongoing virtual programming.
Instructions for joining with a Zoom link and password will be provided by email upon registration confirmation under “Additional Information.”
Accessibility
This virtual program is free for all to attend. It will be recorded and shared at a later date on our website, Vimeo and YouTube pages.
This program will be conducted in both Spanish and English, with live translation available to all.
Closed captioning will be provided in English.
For questions or to request accessibility accommodations, please email publicprograms@folkartmuseum.org.