Miss 2017

2017 · Boxed portfolio of 11 embroidered sashes and letterpress poster Sashes: machine embroidery on satin and grosgrain ribbon · Drawings and Prints

Designed to be worn by participants at the January 21, 2017, Women’s March on Washington, these sashes are embroidered with witty and ironic feminist tropes. Part of a set whose titles are printed on a small poster, they were made by the Victory Garden Collective, women artists who create works in the spirit of a World War II "victory garden." Seeing the world as "again in political and environmental turmoil [... and] similarly in need of nourishment and unification," they make publicly engaged art that seeks to address those needs. This example evokes the efforts of early twentieth-century suffragettes, who marched under purple and green banners to assert women’s right to vote; the sashes also raise traditional, more troubling associations for feminists, such as the attire of parading beauty queens.

Artist: Katherine B. Michel|Janis Stemmermann|Wendy Small|Tara Geer|Jess Frost|Louise Eastman|Victory Garden Collective
Date: 2017
Medium: Boxed portfolio of 11 embroidered sashes and letterpress poster Sashes: machine embroidery on satin and grosgrain ribbon
Department: Drawings and Prints
Credit line: Gift of Katherine Beinecke Michel, 2017