CLICK HERE to see finished blocks
CALL TO ACTION
- Participants are asked to make one 10” x 10” square for a name they sign up for on the SignUp website https://signup.com/go/bCLKJru . The square can be crocheted, knitted, or sewn and adorned in any fashion they feel is appropriate. However, the majority color for the pieces should be black or brown-- this project is about revenant mourning of the unjust murders of Black Americans; adding other colors may be interpreted as a celebration rather than a reminder of the death and harm done.
- Those who choose to make a sewn square are asked to leave at least a ½ inch border along all sides so the piece may be hole punched for connection to all the other pieces.
- Participants are asked to adhere the name of the person they are making the square for onto the front side of the square-- this can be done as a tag, embroidered, sewn, drawn, worked into the stitch pattern (for knit/crochet pieces) or any other way as long as it is legible
- Self-guided research is encouraged. A list of questions to start with can be found here
Social Media Sharing:
Hashtags: #Blacklivesmatter #BLM #BLMmemorialblanket #collectivecrafting #saytheirnames #nojusticenopeace #partofawholePlease send the square(s) to:
- Cherry Pit Collective
604 E. 31st St.
Kansas City, Missouri 64109
︎︎︎︎︎︎ More Information Below:
What is the BLM Memorial Blanket Project?
- A collective artmaking project where participants are asked to make “squares” for a Black American who lost their life using art methods of crochet, knitting, or sewing. The participant will sign up for one or a couple of names and will research that person's case.
What will happen to the squares?
- Each square, once received, will be photographed and cataloged along with any other material/responses the sender may ship with their piece. After being documented, the square will be attached via crochet to other squares to create the memorial blanket.
- The aim is to have the blanket on display as a physical marker to those who have died - locations are to be determined. A blanket cannot be tear gassed or shot and injured with less-than-lethal rubber bullets, nor can it be classified as destruction of property where displayed and cannot be brushed off as vandalism.
The inspiration and intention of impact for this project is the AIDS Memorial Quilt started in 1987 whose magnitude and ever-growing presence demands attention as a cure and treatment for AIDS is sought after. Read more about the quilt here.
Another project I am pulling from is the collective bead making that went into artist Cannupa Hanska Luger’s 2018 “Missing and Murdered Indigeneous Women, Girls, Queer and Trans People BEAD PROJECT (EVERYONE)” The intimate and time consuming action of forming and making clay beads allowed information to be spread in ways that signing online petition after petition simply cannot. This is not saying that signing crucial petitions against ill-will driven legislation or to encourage the resignation of corrupt officials is not an important part of dismantling a corrupt system, but rather that making information stick in the minds of those who are outside its influence must invoke a physical notion. More information on this project can be found here.
Why are you doing this project?
- This project ignited out of a need to do something during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots and protests across the United States and beyond that keeps the conversation going among those unaffected and/or unable to partake actively in protests, marches, civil disobedience, and so on. I thought of numbers-- how people have been murdered in cold blood to police brutality. https://xaviernewswire.com/2020/06/05/say-their-names/
Eric Garner, Travoyn Martin, Philando Castile, Michael Brown -- all news stories I remember hearing as I was coming of age. The riots, the brutality, the dragging through the mud of their names while the perpetrators remained untouched. But like a match, the fires went out, the media stopped covering the story, it was old news while the next new murder came into being, or the U.S. just wanted to move on from “all that mess”.
Not any more. I refuse I stand by idly and watch this well-worn pattern repeat itself. I refuse to let yet another abuse of power be drowned out by the ever-raging media breaking news stories.
No more do we Americans get to go back to ‘normal’ and back to living our lives again while others are slaughtered by those sworn to protect us. No you don’t get to have a peaceful family dinner. No you don’t get to celebrate the 4th of July while also bashing rioters who demand that justice is served and for the corrupt system that supports these traditions to be abolished.
Where is your data coming from?
- An Op. Ed article published online in “The Xavier Newswire” entitled “Say their names.” on June 5th, 2020 introduced me to the Washington Post’s database detailing “every fatal shooting in the United States by a police officer in the line of duty since Jan. 1, 2015.”
- Newswire chose to humanize 106 of the 1,000+ names found in the database with details about the persons’ life.
- The first names I am adding to the SignUp are these 106 names, over the next month I will be collating and adding the remaining names from the Washington Post’s database in addition to searching out other databases and resources of other cases of lethal violence against Black Americans.
All Images © Alyza Perez