Activists Use Embroidery To Protest Mexico's Murder Epidemic

Embroidery is not necessarily the most obvious technique for commemorating a tragedy, but stitching is one technique that Fuentes Rojas, a collective in Mexico that reclaims public space through peaceful protest, uses to remember those who have been disappeared or killed in the country. 

The collective meets regularly in a park in Coyoacán in Mexico City, Frida Kahlo's old neighbourhood, to embroider white handkerchiefs with the names of the people who have been disappeared, or murdered. This article explains:

Rows of handkerchiefs between the trees, fluttering in the early Sunday afternoon breeze. Some are simple, threaded with stark black block letters, while others bear an elaborate, blood-red outline of Mexico. Each one carefully spells out a name and tells a story.

Turning craft into a political statement might be nothing new, the article states, but in Mexico, Fuentes Rojas gave rise to a new wave of "craftivism". 

The craft is political, but it is not ‘art’, according to one member of the collective.

"Our work is a political statement. We prefer not to call it art,” before elaborating that “by calling it art, we’d be closing off our protest to elitist spaces.”

The collective is responding a tragic and important issue in Mexico. Last November the government reported that more than 34,000 people have been reported missing since 2006 — when former President Felipe Calderón began his “war on drugs” — according to Human Rights Watch. But the truth is no one knows how many people are missing.