In one hoop, clasped hands hold a posy of pink, purple and yellow flowers. Another depicts a woman’s hands outlined in a red stitch, her nails trimmed in pearl beading, and rings on her fingers.
These are two of the works in Suzani Stories, a new exhibition at Bunjil Place that examines the time-honoured tradition of hand embroidery and its central place in Afghan culture and community. Presented by Melbourne fashion and textiles not-for-profit The Social Studio, the exhibition features embroidered artwork by 14 Afghan Australian women who worked alongside poets, photographers and illustrators to tell their personal stories.
At a time when women in Afghanistan have been restricted even from praying or reciting the Koran with other women, these artworks are expressions of Afghan women’s sisterhood and artistry as they face increasingly severe silencing.
Suzani textiles are made in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and other Central Asian countries. (Supplied: The Social Studio)
Hands feature prominently in many of the artworks. “Our hands can do a lot,” explains one artist, Fareshta. “As an Afghan woman, from such an early age, we use our hands to embroider, to cook and to clean. I’ve embroidered my rings because I love to wear them, the green ring is very special to me, my best friend gifted it to me and I never take it off.”
Other works confront the current political context directly. “I chose to embroider my lips because Afghan women have always been forced to stay silent,” says Sakina. “The things we feel inside, we can’t express them in fear of being judged.”
The exhibition has been six months in the making but it harkens to a much longer cultural lineage, passed down through the generations and crossing national borders. A suzani – which comes from the Persian word for needle, suzan – is a type of hand-embroidered textile produced across central Asia. Traditionally, girls make suzanis as part of their dowry or trousseau in preparation for their wedding day.
Suzanis were traditionally made by Central Asian brides as part of their dowry, and were presented to the groom on the wedding day. (Supplied: Libby Chow)
As well as new works created in collaboration with The Social Studio, Suzani Stories will feature embroidered pieces from the artists’ personal archives that have travelled with them from Afghanistan to Australia, including works they made as young girls learning the craft from their mothers and grandmothers.
One catalyst for the exhibition was a group visit to the National Gallery of Victoria’s textile collections last year. The Social Studio’s CEO, Dewi Cooke, recalls that one woman noticed familiar techniques in the items on display.
“She said there were so many women in Afghanistan whose names people would never know because of where they are, but they could do all this kind of work,” Cooke says.
“And we thought, ‘Oh, that’s really interesting. Maybe we can do something where at least a small group of women get their names known for this work that they do, that’s really inherent to who they are’.”
Appreciating Afghani artistry
But learning embroidery has also been an unhappy experience for some Afghan women. “It was something many of them had learnt because that was all that they were allowed to learn,” Cooke says.
Suzani embroidery is usually done on a cotton or sometimes silk base, with silk or cotton thread for the designs. (Supplied: Banin Yaquib)
One woman was baffled at the interest in embroidery – why would anyone want to thread a needle when you can hold a pen? Others were reluctant for their daughters to spend time on a practice they associated with oppression.
“My mum was not allowed to go to school and she was always crying to attend, she was keeping the school uniforms for ages,” says Shegofa Naseri, the project’s bi-cultural translator who also embroidered an artwork herself. “That’s why she tells me to focus on my studying rather than embroidery because they don’t have a good experience from it.”
For 23-year-old Naseri, who arrived in Australia in 2018 as a Hazara refugee and now studies politics and philosophy at Deakin University, the project was an eye-opening chance to learn how different other Afghan women’s experiences could be from her own as they chatted about their lives while sewing.
The Suzani Stories exhibition is on at Bunjil Place, a creative hub in Melbourne’s southeast. (Supplied: The Social Studio)
“Because my dad was always really open-minded … he always stand behind me and supported me to grow up and to be myself,” she says. “I never thought like my culture could be like that.”
Naseri hopes the exhibition helps reframe embroidery in the artists’ lives.
“They were saying that in [Afghanistan], no-one really appreciates their works. It was just something they had to do as a woman,” she says. “We were telling them in Australia, embroidery is not something they’re forced to do, and not everyone knows how to do it.
“So most of the ladies now understand that it’s not something they should be ashamed of, this skill. It’s something that they really have to be proud of.”
What did help instil pride for many of the women was getting a professional wage during the fortnightly embroidery workshops. The Social Studio paid participating artists under the textile, clothing and footwear award and, for most of the women, it was their first experience of paid work.
Tahera Rashedi from the Migrant Workers Centre conducted information sessions in Dari on workers’ rights and walked the participants through the basics of registering a tax file number and opening a superannuation account.
Very few examples of suzanis have survived from before the late 18th century, but there are descriptions of this kind of art from the early 15th century. (Supplied: Banin Yaquib)
In other ways, however, Suzani Stories has been intentionally focused on art and community, rather than on replicating the structures and demands of a typical workplace where employees clock on for a shift.
Previous projects at The Social Studio have illuminated the tension between craft and market forces.
“The fact is that embroidery takes time. So it’s very hard for us to recoup the cost of production, just given what people are willing to pay for clothing in general,” Cooke explains.
“It made us think like, ‘Is that the best vehicle for people to connect with this very rich cultural practice?’ So we tried something different this year, which obviously still cost money because we pay everybody to do it, but it’s not relying on the market to put a value on it.”
The Suzani Stories exhibition is on until November 10 at Bunjil Place, Narre Warren, Victoria.
