Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton MA Seeks Textile-Based Craft Submissions for Upcoming Exhibition, Peacework 2020: Racial Justice Through Protest and Handwork

Peacework 2020: Racial Justice Through Protest and Handwork will focus on textile-based craft objects created during the year’s social and racial justice movement.

BROCKTON, Mass. (February 1, 2021) – In July 2020, the New York Times reported “Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Protest Movement in U.S. History,” seven weeks after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officers on May 25, 2020. Ongoing protests for racial justice continued throughout the subsequent months in American communities, rocking a nation already reeling from the effects of a global pandemic. The marches and rallies spanned from urban neighborhoods to rural streets, as the contrasting chants of “Black Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter” widened a civic divide in the throes of an already deeply divisive U.S. Presidential election cycle.

Art and creativity always prevail during such a tumultuous time.

Fuller Craft Museum is producing the upcoming exhibition,

Peacework 2020: Racial Justice Through Protest and Handwork, which will feature textile-based and craft work created during the social unrest of 2020. Artwork submissions deadline is March 1, 2021.

Below are the eligibility requirements:
Eligibility: Open to all artists, crafters, and makers throughout the U.S., of all experience levels, and of all demographic backgrounds. Open to all people working in the traditional fiber arts, including those working with yarn, embroidery, cross-stitch, quilting, felting, rug hooking, paper, basketry, and other fiber media. Hobbyists are encouraged to submit their work. Crafters of color, Black crafters, and those from self-identified marginalized backgrounds and communities are especially encouraged to submit their work.

Selected works will fall under the Peacework 2020 theme explicitly (as expressed by the piece itself) or abstractly, through the artist’s statement, and may – through the applied technique and visual expression – connect with the following questions:

• How are protests an example of people engaging in “peacework?”
• What is the connection between craft practice and doing “peacework?”
• What happens when protests turn violent?
• How can handwork be used to amplify Black voices in the struggle for racial justice?
• What purpose does craft activism serve as a response, or as a call to action, when bodily
harm is enacted against Black bodies and personhood by tax-funded police agencies and
officers?
• What role do white crafters play as allies in the struggle for Black equity, equality and
racial justice?
• How do well-intentioned white crafters get in the way of racial progress or efforts at
solidarity?

Peacework 2020 is scheduled for October 9, 2021 – January 2, 2022, and will be curated by a jurying committee, including Guest Curator Hinda Mandell, Fuller Craft’s Artistic Director and Chief Curator Beth McLaughlin, fiber artist and educator Karen Hampton, and mathematician and quilter Chawne Kimber.

Submission Requirements:

Group and individual submissions are welcome, as are contributions from nonprofits, political organizations, religious institutions, crafting circles, community groups, and youth centers. Individual artists and groups may submit up to three works for consideration.

Submission Format Requirements:

• Image files: jpeg or tiff, 300 dpi minimum (one per work, details as necessary)
• Image list: artist name, title of work, year of creation, media, dimensions, weight,
installation requirements, with name, contact details on the top of the page
• Maker’s statement about the submitted works (no more than 200 words) with name and
contact details on the top of the page
• Maker’s bio (no more than 200 words) with name, contact details on the top of the page
Art requirements:
• All submitted works must use textiles either exclusively or have a strong textile component, drawing upon the “social fabric” as a metaphor reflecting the way people weave themselves into their communities and political systems through their beliefs.
• Work must be no larger than 60” high x 60” wide x 18” deep.
• All works must come ready to hang and/or prepped for display, e.g. include a hanging
sleeve, “D-rings,” or other hanging mechanism.
• Due to the contemporary nature of this exhibit, only work created from spring 2020 (following the death of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter marches) to the present day will be considered.
• All works must fall under the Peacework 2020 theme.
• Costs associated with delivery and return of artwork to be paid by artists.
Please email all submission materials, as listed above, to Charlie Pratt, Curatorial Associate at Fuller Craft Museum (cpratt@fullercraft.org), and Guest Curator Hinda Mandell (hbmgpt@rit.edu) by March 1, 2021. Questions regarding the exhibition can be directed to Guest Curator Hinda Mandell. Questions about Fuller Craft Museum can be directed to Exhibition Manager Charlie Pratt