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Art+Feminism Wikistorming 2023 @pennstate - Eunjin Kim

Eunjin Kim, Art Education Ph.D. Candidate, presents, "MicroRevolt: A Knitting Activist Organization Protesting Feminized Sweatshop Labor", as part of the 2023 Penn State Art+Feminism Wikistorming event documented at https://sites.psu.edu/afwiki/history/2023-2/.

Penn State Art+Feminism

5 months ago

hello everyone my name is Eunjin Kim and today I  will be presenting about Micro Revolt a knitting activist organization protesting feminist sweat  job labor sorry about the note but yeah okay um this presentation will introduce micro Revolt  an organization I'm sorry sorry about that an organization that relates to craftivism and  anti-sweat Shop activism I will cover what it is the founder Kat Maas and their actions including  the software and Nike blanket petition finally we I will provide re
sources that can be linked  to creating a new Wikipedia page about micro Revolt micro Revolt is an organization a website  that promotes knitting as a form of activis ISM against feminized low-wage Sweatshop labor  the concept of micro Revolt is inspired by the idea of molecular Revolutions in Kat Maas  the founder of micro Revolt interview she posed questions such as what if social change was not  simply a consequence of governing or economic policies and small disconnected resistant acts  over
lapping to nudge along change and what is the political potential of craft and can it be  an Avenue for pleasure as well as organizing for social goods these questions were how she came  up with the idea of establishing a craftivism organization craftivism is a form of activism  that incorporates forms of anti- capitalism environmentalism solidarity and feminism  that is centered on practices of crafting or making a product the term was coined by a  writer Betsy Greer the goal of craftivism is t
o create a space for dialogues and  reflection on social and political issues through engaging in Creative  Expressions such as knitting sewing and embroidery micro Revolt had a strong interest in  the anti-sweat shop movement the sweat shop is a factory in which clothes are mass produced for  Western chains usually in poor conditions with minimum wage the conditions of these sweat shops  violate several laws from child labor to um health and safety the conditions of these sweat shops  violate s
everal laws oh yeah I'm sorry since the 1970s with the rise of export-based industrial  iation the demand for female underpaid labor in the developing countries has increased to  make changes and let people know of the severe working conditions several campaigns and films  critiqued and tried to make changes a series of local groups networked into a coalition called  sweat-free communities and campaigned for better trade and purchasing policies there also have been  films like maila police and C
hina blue that have helped raise awareness about feminized sweat jop  labor the founder of micro Revolt cat matah is a textile artist on the top right um it's another  project of hers that she worked on outside of micro Revolt titled labor sister sampler in  2016 it is a 10-ft wide knitted timeline of Labor history each Motif in every state it  symbolizes key moments in the female labor movement in the micro revolv website Kat  Mata introduced a web application that translates digital images int
o nle craft  such as crochet knitting and embroidering using the NIT proo program the organization  worked on Logo knitting in the Tactical media lab in Troy New York in the year 2003 to 2006  knits in micro Revolt knitted garments with the logos of sweat job offenders their purpose  was to stimulate Dialogue on digital copyright corporate Monopoly and the feminization of Labor  in global capitalism through knitting corporate logos from 2003 to 208 a group of international  knits KN knit and cro
chet hobbyists partici participated in the micro revolts project  the Nike blanket petition it is a 15 ft wide handmade Swish and each Square was crochet  crocheted as a petition for Fair Labor policies for Nike garment workers petitioners came from  37 countries and from every state in the US squar is accumulated from micro Revolt workshops and  exhibition tours and donations from Global needing circles volunteers who made multiple squares later  added signatures in the wet form um The Border w
as stitched together at ganti Gallery in Istanbul in  November 2007 next to a Nike store and the quilt was finalized in Troy New York in 2008 once the  Nike logo was finished participants made multiple colored squares for the borders and connected  to the swish on the very top left is the list of people who participated in the petition it used  to be an interactive web page and as you move the mouse cursor the side name city state and Country  came up the petition declared that clo for sale in m
y community produced in the US or abroad should  be manufactured in accordance with established International labor organization conventions  and monitored by independent Auditors that are neither fun it nor founded by the corporations  accused of Labor exploitation corporations using subcontracted labor have a responsibility to  ensure that their products must be produced in a safe and healthy workplace without child or forced  labor corporations using subcontracted labor also have a responsibi
lity to ensure that workers are  paid a living wage as opposed to the legal minimum wage and workers have the freedom to associate and  form independent unions the crochet blanket travel to craft circles art galleries and activist venues  to mobilize the public um in the anti- sweat jop initiative um here are some list of exhibitions uh  where the Nike blanket petition was presented and in 2010 one that is bold in bold was an exhibition  only 9 miles away from Nike headquarter at the Museum of C
ontemporary craft in Portland Oregon uh  the Nike CEO Mark Parker has been invited and has politely agreed to visit the museum before the  last day to see the um swsh however um he never came that's what was said in the micro Revolt blog  post lastly um here are some resources that could be linked to micro Revolt new Wikipedia page uh  and I will be share stop sharing and adding those resources to the chat thank you for listening  to the chat and then I might move them um well I think everybody
here is on here so we can get  them on on the chat otherwise um we can also put them right on our meet up page so that let me  just the chat's fine though then can go from there no you don't article but you do Nest it you  find something where like this a Nike sweat shop you find something like that in which we  now can talk about this micro revote activist group this history reference or something oops  Visual Evidence I think I think there are some there are references that are on websites it 
would just be an external link to something on on a website but the more the fact that it's  an organization and it's been going on since um where did I say the first date like what3 yeah  so we could even begin that paragraph protest against Nike because they only start with 2005 so  we could put it up at the top of that paragraph right if the that would be a corre keep blanket  petition yeah I guess I should be doing this in

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