Considering the current wave of anti-rights movements, it is vital that we come together, reflect, and find spaces that cultivate hope. One epistemic and methodological tool that has historically been reclaimed by feminized bodies as a means of protest and healing is embroidery and textile arts. Recognizing the potential that this practice evokes, these workshops seek to catalyse joint reflection, share experiences among dissidents (specifically lesbians and sapphics), and reclaim more dignified ways of life.

The workshop is an invitation to reflect collectively and embroider our supporting networks (i.e. friendships, chosen family, affective links, other animals, living beings that live alongside us) that allow us to build emancipatory and caring paths as dissidents confronting a cisheteronormative world.

No previous embroidery knowledge necessary.

Workshop Facilitator: Itzel Cadena Alvear (sie/she/her)

Psychologist and philosopher of science with honours (UNAM). Feminist embroiderer, responsible of the autonomous feminist textile project “Hilos de Vida”.

Currently she is research collaborator of the Coordination for Gender Equality at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (CIGU, UNAM). Member of the Network for Science, Gender and Technology (Red CITEG) and the 4E Cognition group from the Institute of Philosophical Research, UNAM.

Her research interests include cognitive diversities; embodied affect; feminist epistemology; activism in the field of women’s health and sex-gender diversities; textile technologies and epistemologies.