Stitching unspeakable stories
How embroidery continues to break the silence about women’s trauma
How do we speak trauma? We know from medicine that people embody trauma, beyond words. It shows up in our hearts and our blood pressure, our dreams and our nightmares; we pass it on to our children, and we work it through in arts, spirituality and counselling.
My work has focused on a burning question in South Africa: how did women survive, care for others, and live through the many traumas of apartheid? I was interested in looking for ways to dismantle the polished narratives that circulate and are so often taken as the norm. These narratives speak of healing and forgiveness and of democracy and buried past.
But, we know the “crisis” was not singular. Under the apartheid regime, many black women lived in underdeveloped areas with no jobs. Many of these women had husbands who lived and worked far away from home. Black women had limited rights, and even though they were allowed to work (under very restrictive conditions), they could be dismissed at any time and with no pay.
Gender inequality was blatantly apparent and women were underpaid regardless of what job they did.
Most of the women left their households for long hours every day to work in the white neighbourhoods. Back home, they had children and elders to care for.
And yet, with oppression comes resistance. Many of these women got involved in organised marches and demonstrated against the laws that were imposed upon them.
I studied the experiences of black women who grew up during apartheid and used the artistic form of embroidery to break the “culture of silence” that so many of them were accustomed to.
The study, working with women from the Intuthuko Embroidery Project in Etwatwa on the East Rand, revealed that creating the opportunity for people to tell their own stories and make meaning of their life experiences is a step towards emancipation. It helps in reducing the unequal power relationships that exist when people are spoken for. Using embroideries to narrate personal experiences and the injustices they constantly face, the women show how art can be a form of social transformation.
Breaking the silence
Many women continue to live in poverty, earn minimum salaries and suffer intimate partner violence. Many have to carry unspoken traumas that pervade their daily lives.
Breaking the silence is an important starting point. Embroideries literally show the complex nature in which lives are interwoven.
Beyond making visually appealing artwork, needlework has always been a useful tool to tell difficult or unspeakable stories.
Although their embroideries serve as a canvas for the outpouring of pain and loss, the women’s work also tells stories of hope, resilience and resistance.
Through their artistic visuals, the women journeyed back in time to make meaning of the past and present. They stitched together their complicated life experiences of what it means to be a black woman living in South Africa.
The apartheid system systematically incapacitated people’s ability to imagine their lives differently. For example, they were denied the opportunity to receive good quality education. But the women’s embroideries highlight narratives of endurance and strength, thereby refuting the popular narratives of equating oppression with damage.
Embroidery offers these women the opportunity to highlight structural violence and inequalities that have a direct effect on people’s everyday encounters. Embroidery further offers space to those who embody the injustices to create multilayered pieces of knowledge by producing and laying out their experiences, as well as their hopes, love and desires, on the cloth.
It also allows women to generate an income. The members of the Intuthuko Embroidery Project sell their products at the Rosebank Sunday Market in Johannesburg.
What we need to do
We know women carried the pain for families — as breadwinners, as abandoned wives, as daughters, mothers and aunties. We know that they endured the hardships of apartheid and economic troubles, structural violence of “pass laws” and violence at the hands of intimates.
We know women resisted in ways public and private, large and small.
We know that state programmes to “help” women are not as effective as opportunities for self-determination; resources to be driven by the women for the women.
And we know, as social scientists, that expression through art forms — visual methods — may reveal experiences that will not be spoken in an interview or a focus group.
As the women continue to journey towards true liberation, social justice and freedom, they do so by threading their shared experiences and suffering. Their work, although focusing on individual experiences, provides a chorus when viewed collectively that breaks historical silences.
By making embroideries, women move beyond and challenge categories and labels of “being vulnerable” or being perceived as “marginalised”.
More communities could use art forms to confront gendered societal issues. Individual and collective artistic expression can play a role in the attainment of a just society — and it deserves more attention.
* The embroideries used in the study will be on exhibit at the Canada Museum of Human Rights in the new year.
Embroideries highlight endurance and strength, refuting the popular narratives that equate oppression with damage
Puleng Segalo is professor of psychology at the University of South Africa. This is an edited version of an article first published by The Conversation