Memory, Grief and the Politics of Remembering
Art Against Empire
After her partner died, Mary Burgess wove herself a blanket from his clothes and the jacket she wore to his funeral. When she finished, she thought: I could do this for other people. This episode asks a question that haunts empires: whose deaths count? Philosopher Judith Butler argues that to grieve publicly is to insist a life mattered — which is why authoritarian regimes have always tried to suppress mourning. Stalin forbade families from grieving. The Tiananmen Mothers are placed under surveillance before each anniversary. Franco's government exhumed 33,000 bodies and reburied them...
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Art as Witness to Climate Crimes
Art Against Empire
Artists have always responded to their environment, but what happens when it changes? Art Against Empire's fifth episode goes to Michigan, where an artist embroiders glacier data onto silk and we check in on Minneapolis, where strangers gather in a library basement to make a crazy quilt from surgical bandages and childhood dish towels. This episode explores how artists respond to environmental crisis — from creating Dust Bowl quilts to the first Earth Day, we track the history of environmental activism and art. This episode features Bonnie Peterson who works with glaciologists to...
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Perfect Is Boring: Failure As Resistance
Art Against Empire
Episode 4 of Art Against Empire explores how perfectionism is used as a tool of oppression. This episode features an interview with Kim Werker who is a weaver, creator of the Mighty Ugly project and a craft entrepreneur; as well as an anecdote from Catherine West of Significant Seams in the United Kingdom. Both guests use workshops to help people overcome perfectionism that is holding them back. They both discovered that the fear of making something "ugly" or “imperfect” reveals deeper fears about using our voices and taking creative risks. This episode explores how you...
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Stephen Towns: Uncovering the Invisible
Art Against Empire
Welcome to Episode 3 of Art Against Empire! Stephen Towns paints and quilts the histories that America tried to erase, from Nat Turner's rebellion to forgotten spaces of Black joy. In 2018, Stephen became the first African American artist-in-residence at Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. Not 1968, 2018! There, he created a portrait of Elsie Henderson, the Black woman who ran that famous house for decades yet whose story had been reduced to footnotes. Stephen's journey began with a quilt inspired by his sister's words: "How can you disrespect me when my grandmother literally fed your...
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Quilting as Collective Storytelling
Art Against Empire
Welcome to Episode 2 of Art Against Empire! Quilting as Collective Storytelling weaves together the stories of the AIDS quilt, the Abolition Sewing Bee and features the work of Sara Trail who founded the Social Justice Sewing Academy in Oakland, Californnia. Sara’s putting needle and thread into the hands of young people from marginalized communities. They've stitched portraits of police violence victims, documented gentrification through a child's eyes, and created memorial quilts that travel the country. In this episode, Sara names the hidden barriers to quilting: the spare bedroom studio,...
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Our Hands Know How to Build the World We Want
Art Against Empire
Quilters, blacksmiths, weavers, embroiderers - 25 artists across four countries using craft to fight systems of power. Welcome to Art Against Empire! This series introduction launches a 16-episode journey featuring over two dozen artists, craftspeople, and theorists across four countries. You'll hear from quilters stitching memorials to police violence victims, blacksmiths forging tools as acts of reclamation, embroiderers translating climate data into thread, and weavers who building queer community. Host Ian Capstick is a recovering political pundit turned textile artist, he traces why...
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Art Against Empire - Trailer
Art Against Empire
Art Against Empire examines the intersection of creativity and politics through conversations with artists, craftspeople, and activists who use making as a form of resistance. Hosted by recovering political pundit and textile artist Ian Danger Capstick, each episode dives into the radical history of craft traditions, profiles contemporary makers disrupting systems, and shares practical projects that merge beauty with dissent. From textile workers' strikes to guerrilla street art, from Indigenous craft sovereignty to anti-capitalist maker spaces...we explore how human creativity has always been...
info_outlineWelcome to Episode 2 of Art Against Empire!
Quilting as Collective Storytelling weaves together the stories of the AIDS quilt, the Abolition Sewing Bee and features the work of Sara Trail who founded the Social Justice Sewing Academy in Oakland, Californnia.
Sara’s putting needle and thread into the hands of young people from marginalized communities. They've stitched portraits of police violence victims, documented gentrification through a child's eyes, and created memorial quilts that travel the country.
In this episode, Sara names the hidden barriers to quilting: the spare bedroom studio, fifteen-dollar fabric, the socioeconomic privilege the industry won't discuss and shares how her "Robin Hood" model redistributes resources to young makers. We trace the lineage she draws from: freedom quilts, the improvisational brilliance of Gee's Bend, and the AIDS Memorial Quilt. We also hear from Grace Rother on the Abolition Quilting Bee.
Art Against Empire is edited by Shawn Dearn and produced by Secret Agents. Visit artagainstempire.net for photos, transcripts, and resources.