During ArtVilnius’23 I participated in the performative action of stitching the poetry organised by the artist duo Handwork—Dileta Deikė and Jelena Škulis, held at the Artifex Gallery.
The visitors were invited to collectively stitch the war-time poems written by Ukrainian authors Iryna Starovoyt and Victoria Amelina. As the artists say: “Stitch by stitch, word by word, we put things—everything we consider important, everything we fear, everything that hurts, or that we love and cherish—into this handmade cloth to create a memorial. It’s not a cold stone monument, but a monument made of the warm touch of our hands.”
On this occasion, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dileta Deikė and Jelena Škulis.
Dobromila Baszczyk: During the art fair ArtVilnius’23 (October 13–15), we embroidered a poem by Victoria Amelina. It discussed, among other things, the blurring of boundaries, disappearance, and permeation. Upon initial reading, this seems to relate to the language of poetry, which loses its poetic essence when it collides with brutal reality, but also, I think, to the human being as a cultural entity we have known thus far. Can you tell us a little more about Victoria’s work?
Dileta Deikė and Jelena Škulis: Oh, yes, you have captured this obvious feeling of blurring boundaries, such as people’s activities and abilities, during great tragedies and crises. However, to perceive Victoria’s poem, it is vital to know her biography which absolutely reflects this sentiment. Victoria Amelina (1986—2023) was a young and active novelist. Her debut novel The Fall Syndrome: or Homo Compatiens (2015), in which she explored the Maidan challenges, received several literary awards in Ukraine and wider Europe. Another novel Dom’s Dream Kingdom (2017), which talks about the family of a Soviet colonel who lived in the former childhood apartment of the Polish Jewish author Stanisław Lem in Lviv during the 1990s, was short-listed for the LitAkcent literary award and the European Union Prize for Literature in 2019.
After her country was hit by the war, she worked as a war crime researcher and volunteered to provide humanitarian aid in Ukraine. Tragically, Victoria was fatally injured dining in the pizzeria in Kramatorsk this summer—not while volunteering or researching—leaving her son an orphan. The restaurant was hit by a Russian Iskander missile.
The poem we chose to stitch begins with the words “I don’t write poetry. I am a novelist,” and it reflects the real fact of Victoria’s life—that she started writing poetry only during the war. So maybe poetry becomes to us and to her a weapon or a sword to fight, a tool to reflect the truth, and a method to survive.
The poem we stitched together with the invited community on an old handwoven linen breathed new life into her words and became a lasting memorial. Stitch by stitch, word by word, we put things—everything we consider important, everything we fear, everything that hurts, or that we love and cherish—into this handmade cloth to create a memorial. It’s not a cold stone monument, but a monument made of the warm touch of our hands.
DB: The poems were written over the last 2 years, i.e., during the Russian invasion and the war in Ukraine. How were the authors and works selected for this performative action? Where did the idea come from? Is this a continuation or perhaps the beginning of a series of events?
DD and JŠ: In the spring of 2022, after the Russian Army started a large-scale war in the territory of Ukraine, we invited the community to participate in a workshop at the cultural complex SODAS 2123 in Vilnius. Participants could add their own touch by embroidering a poem written during the war. The poem was authored by the Ukrainian poet Hałyna Kruk in April 2022, reflecting on the atrocities that had happened in Hostomel, Bucha, Irpin, Kharkiv, and Mariupol. Together with the community, we transferred the poem onto a handwoven linen cloth, which had been hidden underground by a Lithuanian family during World War II, much like a precious heirloom, to safeguard it from looting Soviet soldiers.
It is now the second year of war in Ukraine, and we firmly believe that we must not become tired, forget, or relax. We must continue to support Ukraine in every possible way. Our weapons are a sharp needle and the word of truth. Our symbolic action—embroidering poetry—is a community practice. It is a method to survive the trauma, to get through it somehow. The war did not silence the Ukrainian poets, and we think it is meaningful to spread war-time poetry.
All poems came to us gradually. We had the opportunity to meet Hałyna Kruk at the Vilnius Book Fair last spring and shared with her the result of our collective performative action. During our conversation, we were joined by another woman in the Lithuanian cultural field, Jolanta Donskienė, who happened to be a friend of Hałyna. Afterward, she gave us another piece of 10-metre homemade linen to continue the project. The cloth brought to us by Jolanta was made in the neighbourhood of her country house, in Šeteniai village, the very place where Česlovas Milošas (Czesław Miłosz) grew up. The words of the poets soak into the cloth, which travels through space and time connecting generations and situations into a single integral fabric.
And then, tragically, Victoria Amelina, who was also Hałyna Kruk’s friend and colleague, was killed. So, her poem came to us naturally. The third poem was written at the beginning of 2023 by Iryna Starovoyt and ironically reflects the role of shovel and potatoes in the war. These metaphors may not be easily readable for other cultures, but to us, they form a very close and interesting ironic parallel.
DB: Behind this seemingly trivial embroidered gesture lies the entire complexity of the languages and techniques used. Nowadays, when artists utilise embroidery, it often serves a commentary, criticism, and reinterpretation of activities and creativity traditionally attributed to women. The poems we embroidered were also written by women. What purpose does the combination of two modes of expression—two languages—serve in this performative narrative?
DD and JŠ: Berlin-based Polish art historian and researcher dr. Karolina Majewska-Güde, in her text “Recrafting Futures: Feminist Practices of Material Engagement” reanalyzes craft practices through a feminist perspective. Karolina argues that there are distinct historical conditions that led to the separation between arts and crafts. She is interested in how craft techniques are employed as strategies by feminists. Additionally, Berlin-based artist Katrin Mayer explores ‘performative retelling’ through her textile practice (Rose Fortune, 2014). Meanwhile, Prague-based curator Sofia Tocar and artist Rufina Bazlova, involved in the project #framed in Belarus, use stitching as a tool for activism and to challenge everydayness, forming a means of survival.
We naturally chose three women poets: Hałyna Kruk, Victoria Amelina, and Iryna Starovoyt—to show how women artists actively work during war, what challenges they deal with, and what ideas they spread.
The role of the word is very powerful, especially when combined with slow hand stitching. We are embroidering poems written in their original Ukrainian language, yet we present them to the community in both Lithuanian and English because they deserve to be appreciated and understood. Furthermore, with respect to the creations of poets, they serve an educational purpose, as many people tend to associate Cyrillic script only with the Russian language.
DB: The collective embroidery that you invite us to, as you mentioned, is also a return to the traditionally assigned functions of women: working together, sewing, and sharing stories during the process. Your gesture brings people together in a joint action, blurring the boundaries between high and popular art. How do people react? What are they asking? What are you discussing? Is one of the authors also present during the event in Vilnius?
DD and JŠ: Aptly put, in her text “The Problem with Craft,” Dr. T’ai Smith, a British art historian, mentions that textile art and craft are constantly compared to other artistic practices, as if they must lean towards them. She also emphasises that it is common to analyse craft practices using structuralist lenses or philosophically unsuitable frameworks. Ironically, T’ai’s colleague, dr. Anne Hamlyn, calls this phenomenon theoretical fetishism’. We know that craft practices, along with artisans and women, were excluded from governance of ancient Greece. So, imagining their non-hierarchical connections requires our conscious reevaluation of the challenges they bring, their values, and the creation of real experiences.
And, for sure, when we stop to stitch together, we talk and share. Through these actions, we support Ukraine with physical and metaphorical action, getting close to each other. Numerous stories are told during workshops, where people share their thoughts, worries, and losses. We are usually physically present during the workshops because if there is nobody—there is no action, no support, and no sharing. We try to describe our activities with precision. Most people are supportive. Many read the message visually, without a story. Some ask: why poetry, why Cyrillic? Reactions change when we discuss the materials used for stitching. Others read the poems carefully. We try to feel the people and understand whether a detailed explanation is necessary or if the act of support can speak for itself, without the need for many words.
Even more, a crew of stitchers has become a team of translators who actively support and help us (Antanas Jonynas, Marius Burokas, Maryna Sheremet), as well as other artists who choose to be involved. Sometimes, we can’t believe how large the team for the performative action Stitching the Poetry has grown.
1 – Karolina Majewska-Gude. Recrafting Futures: Feminist Practices of Material Engageme, 2023-02-27 https://artmargins.com/recrafting-futures/]
2 – T’ai Smith. “The Problem with Craft”. In: Art Journal, 75 (1), 2016. 80-84.
3 – Anne Hamlyn. „Freud, Fabric, Fetish“. In: Textil, 1(1), 2003. 9–27.
