The stitch project

Abstract

In this article, I shall discuss participation – the artist's role and responsibility in participation, and the potentials of participatory textile projects in the public space. In doing so, I will focus on The stitch project (2012–). This project involves public interaction through acts of tactile textile making such as stitching on a tablecloth. I have based this study within a context of understanding matter and the embodiment of participation from feminist (Ahmed, 2006; Butler, 1988) and new materialist (Barad, 2003; Coole & Frost, 2010; Garber, 2019) perspectives. I am interested in the interactive aspects of The stitch project and how these aspects relate to the concepts of diapraxis (Nunes, 2019) and al masha (Hilal & Petti, 2018). In regard to these terms, I aim to examine the potentials and challenges of participatory textile art projects, like The stitch project, by examining their social and material aspects as well as the complexities of inclusion and participation.