Empowering Women: Artisan Cooperatives That Transform Communities

More good news to pass along. On June 29, Amina Yabis heads off to America to take part in the opening of an exhibition on July 4 titled Empowering Women: Artisan Cooperatives That Transform Communities at the Museum of International Folk Art, and then will participate in the 7th annual Santa Fe International Folk Art Market from July 9-11.

Over the last couple of months, Amina and I have been in touch with the museum curators sending photographs and quotes for the exhibit. We had a little difficulty getting the right shots at first. Fortunately a couple of friends who happen to be avid photographers came to visit me from Spain and as I do with all my guests, I put them to work. They took some marvelous pictures of the women of the cooperative. The museum was pleased with the collection and selected a few of the shots so big shot-outs to my friends Lisa Anaya and Oriol Llados for their contribution. 

Once again another big "THANK YOU" to RPCV Gregg Johnson for his help in putting the application packet together back in October of last year for admission to the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. The Cherry Buttons Cooperative received their invitation in January and in February we sent all the forms to confirm her participation. This time around the coop will have a full table displaying Sefrou's famous hand-woven buttons, button necklaces, Moroccan slippers adorned with buttons, and their multi-color scarves and natural dye chales. If you're in the neighborhood, I invite you to drop by and also to drop some dollars at her stand. 

What Amina Yabis has done with the cooperative is truly remarkable. In just ten years, the cooperative has grown from 10 to over 40 members, provides steady employment for a number of women, welcomes new weaving apprentices every year, provides natural dye trainings throughout the country, and travels to expos all over Morocco, Europe, and the U.S. Also, this year the coop's sister NGO, the Golden Buttons Association, will be holding it's 4th Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) in July. Amina is grateful for the support of Peace Corps volunteers, PCV families and RPCV groups who have supported Camp GLOW, partner NGOs like the High Atlas Foundation, Maiwa Foundation, the Santa Fe Intl. Folk Art Market who through their skillful fundraising financed Amina's first trip last year, and is of course grateful to her family who has pitched in with the cooking and housework to enable her to carry out her work.

Please take a moment to read through the museum's official press release on the opening of the exhibit and if you can, pass it along to your friends.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 18, 2010

MEDIA CONTACT
Steve Cantrell
505-476-1144

A quiet revolution is taking place around the world led by women artisan cooperatives. Taking the initiative to collectively produce, manage, and market their crafts, they have enriched their lives and become powerful forces in their communities. On July 4, 2010 the Museum of International Folk Art inaugurates its’ “Gallery of Conscience,” a space dedicated to exploring contemporary issues affecting folk art production and consumption.

Empowering Women: Artisan Cooperatives That Transform Communities kicks off the first annual International Folk Arts Week – a week of demonstrations, lectures, folk music, performances, and other programs held in conjunction with the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market running July 9 through July 11, 2010.

Focusing on ten cooperatives that illustrate how the power of such grassroots collaborations transform women’s lives, the exhibit brings together first person quotes, stellar photos, and stunning examples of the cooperatives’ handmade traditional arts to tell stories of how women folk artists are working cooperatively to:

• Preserve and reinvigorate their traditional arts

• Generate steady livelihoods for their families

• Give back to their communities

• Become leaders in public life

• Overcome domestic violence

• Develop literacy programs for themselves and their children

• Heal the traumas of war

• Sustain their natural environments

• Save for the Future

The featured cooperatives are drawn from three continents and ten countries including India, Nepal, Swaziland, South Africa, Rwanda, Kenya, Bolivia, Lao PDR, Peru and Morocco. Featured folk arts include embroidered story cloths, hand dyed sisal baskets, beaded neck collars, hand carded and dyed wool weavings, cultivated bromeliad bags, and folk paintings of village life.

“As the largest folk art museum in the world we have a responsibility to create a forum to discuss current issues that folk artists are facing around the world. This ‘Gallery of Conscience’ will be devoted to the examination of issues that threaten the survival of the traditional arts, bringing them to the attention of our visitors,” says Marsha Bol, Director of the Museum of International Folk Art. “We intend to address, over the course of the next few years, such issues as: the ecological implications of the acquisition of materials used in producing folk arts, the impact of political conflict and war on folk arts, and various economic and social issues that threaten to disrupt folk arts. We will also exhibit examples of successful solutions to such circumstances.”

There is a strong connection between this exhibition and the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market which has; “…always [been] a supporter of cooperatives, recognizing their power to bring both cultural and economic sustainability to communities,” said Folk Art Market Director Charlene Cerny, “Most of the cooperatives at the Market involve women.”

When anthropologist Dr. Suzanne Seriff was asked to guest curate an exhibition on women’s artisan cooperatives at the Museum of International Folk Art she had a unique perspective as head of the Folk Art Market’s Selection Committee. Seriff was; “…struck by the large numbers of women's cooperatives applying to the Market, and their incredible stories how working collaboratively changed their lives. In this exhibition I wanted to bring some of these larger stories to the public, to give the women a chance to speak for themselves—in their own words about their work and their lives and how women all over the world are improving their lives, families and communities with the power of cooperatives."

Nicholas Kristof recently wrote in the New York Times how these women’s artisan cooperatives are change agents in the developing world. One Moroccan woman teaches a village to read. An embroideress from Gujarat takes out a loan for the first time at the local bank. A Hutu woman from Rwanda works side by side with a Tutsi to make the peace baskets that are working to heal their war-torn country. In Swaziland, the village women use profits from the sale of their handwoven sisal baskets to feed and educate the hundreds of children in their village orphaned from AIDS. In Bolivia, displaced Ayorean women learn to cultivate the bromiliad plants that were once native to their jungle habitat and from which they weave their native dress and hand dyed bags. Women artisans from all over the world are using the power of artisan cooperatives to reach new markets and transform their lives.

Two representatives from each cooperative featured in the exhibit will participate in a full week of demonstrations, discussions, lectures, and artist-led exhibit tours beginning with a facilitated roundtable discussion with the curator during the opening on July 4, 2010 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. The opening will be hosted by the Women’s Board of the Museum of New Mexico from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.

Empowering Women: Artisan Cooperatives That Transform Communities runs July 4, 2010 through January 2, 2011.