The Subversive Stitch Revisited

There was an excellent conference at the V&A on Friday "The Subversive Stitch Revisited: the Politics of Cloth.

I tried to use it in the wrong way, in that I wanted to take notes regarding each speaker, but it was not a series of lectures, it was a series of spoken papers on detailed subjects.  I discovered it was impossible to take notes, as you needed to listen carefully to just keep up with what was being said.  There were 3 x 2 hour sessions, each with a keynote speaker plus 3 further papers and a chaired discussion.  The programme was overloaded, which was a pity as there were some excellent topics.

The speakers I enjoyed were Michael Bath from University of Glasgow, who spoke about the symbolism  in Mary Queen of Scots embroideries, where a dolphin giving birth was indicating that Mary, widow of the French Dauphin, had given birth to a male heir (ie more than Elizabeth I had achieved).  Matt Smith from University of Brighton spoke about the way the National Trust was researching family history in NT properties and recognising the significance of homosexual family members and including their partners in family trees. It had never occurred to me before that same-sex partners were ignored in genealogical family trees.  Kimberley Lamm from Duke University spoke about The Sexual Stitch: Ghada Amer and the Affective Labour of Images. Finally, Anne Elizabeth Moore from the Ladydrawers Comic Collective displayed some excellent comic strips that provided a lot of statistics about women's presence in the Comic industry (ie under-represented) and the impact of textiles on women's employment.  This could have been expanded to a 2 hour session on its own, and was brilliantly delivered, with witty cartoons making very pertinent points.

There was far too much packed into the day, and I was particularly niggled by the time-wasting speeches by the event organisers that waffled on for 30 minutes about paying homage to Rosika Parker, regurgitating history, and set the programme behind from the start!  The interesting stuff about Cloth & Politics now, was crammed into tiny time slots, preventing meaty subjects being given the time they deserved.  I hope the conference was deemed a success and that it will become an annual event, as there was so much potential for thought-provoking debate.  It was just all too intense with 12 speakers in one day.