August 2010: At the Whitecross Street art party to raise money and awareness of SHP (Single Homeless Project) charity the Craftivist Collective had a stall and artwork showing.
A lovely older man (wants to remain anonymous) came up to our stall very excited to meet us and said that he had stolen a Mini Protest Banner 2 years ago from Hoxton Square because he thought it was great and he couldnt find out who made it and put it up (he doesnt have the internet so couldnt Google the label). HIs banner said "there is more to life generic medicine online pharmacy than cool points".
MTV Staying Alive asked us to be part of their 'My Right to be Me' blog series to remind people that many people living with HIV don't have a right to travel to certain countries, many don't have a right to follow their dreams because of discrimination and stigma and their health may stop them from doing many things. Sarah Corbett wrote a blog post alongside journalists, musicians and other creatives talking about her right to be a craftivist.
Here is Craftivist Collective founder Sarah Corbett at the Whitecross Street Party that took place 24th- 25th July 2010. Held in the heart of London's internationally renowned art scene. Sitting next to our craftivism stall selling Mini Protest Banner Kits and postcards, giving out flyers for the group and getting sign ups for the mailing list. It went really well!
The wonderful craftivist Carrie Reichardt drove her Tiki Truck to Bestival Festival in Isle of Wight and stuffed some craftivism stuff to take with her.
The truck which was decorated with...
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snug little craftivist corner was tucked away in the corner of the picnic area at the Solas Festival in June in Scotland. Curious...
We got a lovely friendly email from Lucy at the London Oxfam office inviting us to their Artopia event on Tuesday 3rd August. Artopia was about creating a vision of a climate chaos free future using craft so of course we were super keen to go along! It was during the day so only 6 of us had the time to go but we loved it.
Date: Sat 24th- Sun 25th July 12pm-6pm. Venue: Whitecross Street, London
Come say hello :)
Carrie Reichardt and Sarah Corbett will represent the Craftivist Collective at this street party with a conscience. We will be sellings Mini Protest Banner kits, postcards and mosaics to raise money for to print our first UK Craftivism Zine in colour. We will also be encouraging people to sign up to our mailing list and join us in our collective.
We got a lovely friendly email from Lucy at the London Oxfam office inviting us to their Artopia event Date: Tuesday 3rd August 3pm-5pm. Venue: LEB building on Cambridge Heath Road in Bethnal Green. All welcome.
Oxfam Artopia will be in three towns across the South East in the summer, in London, Oxfordshire and Hampshire, delivering climate change art workshops and asking community groups, young people and members of the public to contribute to a collaborative piece of art. This piece, made with paint, canvas, modelling clay, sculpture, fabric and found objects, will be a vision of the world we want to see, filled with bustling rainforests, deep oceans and climate justice!
With the term 'craftivism' being used much more nowadays and sometimes in our opinion, used wrongly to label something, we decided to make it clear what we see as craftivism (and therefore without naming names; what we dont see as craftivism). One of our active London craftivists Sophie Freeman writes:
Betsy Greer is know for coining the term ‘Craftivism’ and defines it as:
“A way at looking at life where voicing opinions through creativity makes your voice stronger, your compassion deeper and your quest for justice more infinite.”
In a July 2010 interview with Betsy for our zine wrote "I'm glad that Sarah [Craftivist Collective Founder and Coodinator] has really understood what I was tryiing to get at all those years ago. The heart of the idea is so important to me that it makes my day when someone else sees the same power in it that I do"
The quickest explanation of craftivism is "craft +activism = craftivism" but this can make it appear that the craft and activism are in equal parts, in reality, when the Craftivist Collective talks about craftivism, we're normally talking about activism through craft or crafty activism - but craftivism sounds way better .
We received the following email from Georgia, a Sydney-based student using Craftivism and the Collective as inspiration for her arts degree show project, shown above. Read the full letter after the jump.
August 2010: At the Whitecross Street art party to raise money and awareness of SHP (Single Homeless Project) charity the Craftivist Collective had a stall and artwork showing.
A lovely older man (wants to remain anonymous) came up to our stall very excited to meet us and said that he had stolen a Mini Protest Banner 2 years ago from Hoxton Square because he thought it was great and he couldnt find out who made it and put it up (he doesnt have the internet so couldnt Google the label). HIs banner said "there is more to life generic medicine online pharmacy than cool points".
We received the following email from Georgia, a Sydney-based student using Craftivism and the Collective as inspiration for her arts degree show project, shown above. Read the full letter after the jump.