A review by mariebrunelm
Crafting Dissent: Handicraft as Protest from the American Revolution to the Pussyhats by Hinda Mandell

challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

This excellent collection of articles dives deep into the concept of craftivism, aka the intersection of craft and activism, through a historical, political, social and contemporary lens. Different authors bring their own unique perspective on the topic and make this collection wide-ranging as far as the USA are concerned. The first section is all about the history of craftivism in the USA in white, fairly affluent circles. The second section deals with the political aspect of craftivism especially today, and the third one gathers together testimonies of craftivists and people having facilitated craftivism workshops.

This is such a big topic, and with such a variety of outcomes, that it would be hard to summarise it here, but having recently discovered the concept of craftivism, I highly enjoyed this collection which I thought was quite accessible and not too academia-oriented. I felt it worked really well as an encouragement to make our crafts a little more overtly political, and this is certainly something I’ll consider in the future.