Sivani Mata ☽ Francis
Priestess ☽ Yogini ☽ Witch
THE RED DRESS
The Red Dress is a 14-year collaborative embroidery project conceived by British artist Kirstie Macleod and provides a platform for people (many of whom are vulnerable and live in poverty) to tell their story through embroidery.
From 2009 to 2023 pieces of the Red Dress travelled the globe being continuously embroidered onto. The garment has been worked on by 367 women/girls, 11 men/boys and 2 non-binary artists from 51 countries.
Embroiderers include female refugees from Palestine, Syria and Ukraine, women seeking asylum in the UK from Iran, Iraq, China, Nigeria and Namibia, survivors of war in Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Rwanda, and DR Congo; impoverished women in South Africa, Mexico, and Egypt; individuals in Kenya, Japan, Turkey, Jamaica, Sweden, Peru, Czech Republic, Dubai, Afghanistan, Australia, Argentina, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Tobago, Vietnam, Estonia, USA, Russia, Pakistan, Wales, Colombia and England, students from Montenegro, Brazil, Malta, Singapore, Eritrea, Norway, Poland, Finland, Ireland, Romania and Hong Kong as well as upmarket embroidery studios in India and Saudi Arabia. There were 141 commissioned embroiderers who were all paid for their work, and receive a portion of all ongoing exhibition fees and merchandise. The rest of the embroidery was added by willing audience at various exhibitions & events.
Initially the project sought to generate a dialogue of identity through embroidery, uniting people around the world without borders. However, over the 14 years the dress has also become a platform for self-expression and an opportunity for voices to be amplified and heard. Many of the embroiderers are established professionals, but there are also pieces created by first time embroiderers. The artists were encouraged to create a work that expressed their own identities whilst adding their own cultural and traditional experience. Some used specific styles of embroidery practiced for hundreds of years within their family, village, or town whilst others chose simple stitches to convey powerful events from their past. Some of the women are re-building their lives with the help of embroidery, by using their skill or being trained in embroidery to earn a decent and consistent living.
The Red Dress’s 14-year creation journey around the world is now complete with the garment assembled in its final configuration. Covered in millions of stitches, the 6.8 kg. silk Red Dress is weighted as much by the individual stories and collective voices waiting to be heard as by the threads and beads that adorn it. It is currently now travelling around the world to be displayed in various exhibitions.
Being in the presence of the Red Dress is an incredibly moving and humbling experience. The potency of the stories carried in each stitch is palpable and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to be a part of it. If highly recommend going to visit the dress if you have the opportunity to, and to watch some of the films made about its journey.
The Red Dress Exhibition Film 2021 by Black Bark Films UK
I (Sivani Mata) had the immense honour to stitch a piece on the dress in Somerton, Somerset in January 2022. The night before I first visited the dress (in Glastonbury 2021), I dreamt that I was embroidering on it. It aligned that when I went to see it, it was during the 10 min that Kirstie was there. She was with her sister Isla who I had done some beautiful weaving ceremonies with (not realising they were family). So I had the opportunity to tell Kirstie about my dream. She generously invited me to manifest my vision, to include on the dress a vulva, representative of the source from which we all came, the house of pleasure and power.
Photo of Sivani Mata with her piece on the Red Dress
Photos of Sivani Mata working on the Red Dress
© Sivani Mata Francis 2023
Sivani Mata Visual Illumination (logo design)
thanks to Sophie @The Firefly Creatrix
Hand drawn Sanskrit above footer by Haidakhan Babaji