Pulling Wool Over Our Eyes
The stage is set four years after a protest banner, Stop Greenwashing, was crocheted in South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the midst of loadshedding, scheduled power outages and electricity scarcity, coal was an unavoidable source of energy production for a country in crisis. Engaging with craftivism to weave awareness of social, ecological, and environmental collapse, this yarn focuses on the greenwashing myth of clean green coal, a briquette made from biochar. Clean coal technology is deceptive because harmful emissions and greenhouse gasses are still not eliminated, despite its eco-friendly label.
Stop Greenwashing is a plea for meaningful dialogue about the climate crisis. The banner has created awareness with Stitches for Survival, a collaborative craftivism activation installed at the 2021 COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, after which it travelled with Extinction Rebellion across Scotland, and is now exhibited at the Museum of Edinburgh.
My Yarn
I was doomscrolling climate change, burning fossil fuels, greenhouse gases, carbon monoxide pollutants, and global warming. Claims by greedy corporates about the environmental friendliness of clean, green coal were misleading. As I tested positive with the virus, I sheltered-in-place during lockdown with my subversive (and sanitised) crochet hook and made a protest banner in the form of a yarn balm for the planet.
“Greenwashing is pulling wool over our eyes. Mother Earth is suffering from humanity’s exploitation as she nurtures the only planet we call home. The idiom ‘pulling the wool over our eyes‘ literally aligns with yarns of thread, and symbolically aligns with deceptive stories. Sitting at this confluence, my banner is a plea for meaningful dialogue about climate action.” – Stacey aka Curious Sleuth
Our Yarn
An algorithm linked me to Stitches for Survival. The banner was squashed into a tiny box by a courier wearing a N95 face mask. It joined 1500 panels, each stitch embodied with a meaningful message informed by each craftivist’s lived experiences. Despite inclement weather, the panels created a story scarf spanning 1.5km across Glasgow Green. rEVOLutionary love offered us hope. Yet, were we heard? The Just Energy Transition Partnership was launched to assist South Africa in transitioning towards cleaner energy production. Would funding reach the coal sector in a country fraught with corruption?
Banner’s Yarn
Deinstalling and drying the banner readied it for repurposing. It was chosen to be displayed at the Women’s Climate Strike outside the Scottish Parliament on International Women’s Day. It then embarked on a road trip with Extinction Rebellion across Scotland.
I lost contact with the banner, thinking its activist lifespan was complete until an Instagram message requested permission for it to be included in a craftivism exhibition at the Museum of Edinburgh, Scotland, titled Making a Statement: Craft & Activism. My protest banner continues to create awareness, embodying its roots at the southernmost tip of Africa by remaining a bridge threading the Global North with the Global South.
Exhibition at Museum of Edinburgh
Making a Statement: Craft & Activism
Thanks to everyone who touched me by letting my protest banner touch them. Craftivism and crochet are universal languages keeping our threaded stories alive because our yarns are tellers of us at this stitch in time.