Deconstructing Threads

This is how deconstructing an old banner with the Catholic concept of the Holy Family with the Feministische Handwerk Partij (FHP) looks like. Such event couldn’t have come at a better time.

The Holy Family has dominated the traditional notion that has both, haunted and enchanted, Hispanic cultures in the Americas since European colonialism. Both, the nuclear and extended family in Spanish speaking cultures, believe in this concept as the main foundation for social structure. This thought, however, is rather hypocritical in a culture heavily known for scoring high in ‘machismo,’ femicide violence, patriarchy, and power distance.

While patriarchy is the universal form of mainstream religions, patriarchal values and social relations also exist in non religious modernity. This post however, aims to highlight on the Hispanic tradition which constitutes by relations of authority, domination and dependency, as a review of the structure of social relations. Hispanic patriarchy originates in the family, it is a hierarchy of authority that is controlled and dominated by males.

Power distance in sociology refers to the attitudes and way that powerful (or non-powerful) members of a community are treated. For centuries, the Catholic Hispanic tradition has promoted daily life scenarios by celibate men, ever since obsessed with the sexuality of women, ruling women’s lives, their bodies and at times violating their human rights.

The promotion of attitudes and conceptions where men are thought that by nature are superior to women—let alone if women are indigenous—begun with celibate men criminalizing and persecuting women in Europe who did not submit. These persecutions turned women into witches in Europe as in other continents.

Today, it is thanks to women’s resistance, perseverance, and support that women have reached a better position in society. Yet a great deal remains to be done in Spanish speaking countries.

FHP or political feminist artist movement founders, Emmeline de Mooij and Margreet Sweerts are part of Interwoven Histories events, where this deconstruction of the Holi Family banner took place. Interwoven Histories is a series of events held in Amsterdam, that aim to unravel the intricate connections between textile, history and society from a contemporary art perspective part of the Touch/Trace research project. Christel Vesters is the curator of Touch/Trace whose manifesto brings together artists, textile designers and makers, writers and thinkers, and everyone interested in the social and geopolitical developments that shape our world today.

De Feministische Handwerk Partij (FHP) founders, Emmeline de Mooij and Margreet Sweerts are part of Life is A Cultural Thread, my film production currently in the making, on women in art, textile craft, entrepreneurship and sustainability, and part of my artistic social residency at Baltan Laboratories.


Please join us in Eindhoven to stitch together a (very large) quilt on Friday 19 November. This social event is for EVERYONE interested to help spread the message over the importance of raising awareness about gender equality. Help for the most vulnerable people is needed. Participants will have the chance to learn over alternative materials and textile innovation to create a positive sociocultural impact and renew ties also with nature. Please contact us to book your spot.


#womenintextile #textile #genderequality #culture