Melanie Prapopoulos, founder and director of North Miami’s The CAMP Gallery, says she has been thinking about the Aristophanes play, “Lysistrata” — the imagined sex strike by Athenian and Spartan women to force an end to the ruinous Peloponnesian war, for more than a few years. It matters not that the war (won by Sparta, by the way) took place from 431 B.C. to 404 B.C., the issue of senseless conflict, women’s voices and women’s work is as contemporary now as it ever was.
Prapopoulos chose the play, along with Spike Lee’s 2015 reconceptualized movie version, “Chi-Raq” as an open doorway to inspire 77 women and guests (either men or non-female identifying) for a total of 83 artists, to create work for CAMP Gallery’s annual fiber exhibition: “We Got the Power, Women Pulling at the Threads of Social Discourse.” The show opens Friday, Oct. 11 and runs through Friday, Dec. 20. “CAMP” is an acronym for” The Contemporary Art Modern Project.” It’s the sixth edition, where, each year artists respond to a different inspiration.
Many of the artists selected were those Prapopoulos came to know through the Fiber Artists-Miami Association, others were personally invited and for this year, some responded to a modest call to artists that director of the gallery put out, and co-curated by Prapopulos and assistant director Maria Gabriella Di Giammarco.
In 2020 it was “The Flag Show,” marking the centennial of the women’s vote. Previous versions include “This is Not a Doll’s House,” responding to Henrik Ibsen’s play “A Doll’s House,” and “A Room of Our Own,” inspired by “A Room of One’s Own,” the Virginia Woolf classic.
In keeping with this year’s Greek theme, the works are presented as a frieze around the room’s pink-painted walls. “Let’s make our own contemporary frieze of fiber artists responding to our current problems in life – which are not any different now,” says Prapopoulos, who is herself of Greek heritage.
Each show’s focus is designed to spark conversation and awareness about how women have survived, contributed and often suffered in a world ruled by men. And, highlighting weaving, sewing, embroidery and other practices derived from the domestic sphere is a key part of the dialogue.
“The whole thing about the fiber show – its anti-patriarchal,” says Prapopoulos. “It’s women responding to institutions, the business establishments that are all male-centered.” The patriarchy, she says, and its capitalist fellow traveler, exploits for money or power those weaker or less privileged – particularly true when it comes to war, planned by older men, but fought and died in by the young, she says.
Initially, the Hamas terrorists’ attacks on Israelis and the kidnapping of civilians, had her thinking about the futility of war through the ages, and how the 20th century’s wars – World War I and World War II and Vietnam in particular – changed war’s character with their mechanized slaughter and euphemistic language such as “collateral damage.”
The works on display often approach the topic obliquely – and not all pieces directly reference conflict, but lines of investigation and connection can be drawn.
Fruma Markowitz, who lives and works in Bridgeport, Conn., for example, features Jewish, Berber and Muslim women sharing different stories – the message is that women, no matter where they are from do not have a problem recognizing one another’s humanity,” says Prapopoulos. The piece. titled “Hilloulah to the West and to the East – A Prayer for Peace,” references a 2020 trip to Morocco. There Markowitz learned about the friendships among these women from different backgrounds who share narratives, myths, religious beliefs, personal adornment and handcraft design, according to Markowitz’s artwork statement.
The piece shows some dancers facing West and others facing East, and references a Greek chorus, writes Markowitz. “According to shared Jewish and Muslim tradition, they are on a pilgrimage, a celebration known by both as a “Hilloulah,” to the tombs of deceased saints (male and/or female), where they seek to have their prayers answered, to change and influence the heavens in their favor – for fertility, for marriage, for health and healing, for the safe return of their men from war, for peace,” according to Markowitz.
Meanwhile, Lima-based Peruvian-born artist Brenda Kuong’s, “The Freedom of the Acllas,” references Inca women separated from their families to become priestesses for the sun, according to Kuong’s artwork statement. The women were often given to rulers of other towns as part of peace treaties. Some were human sacrifices. “They were deprived of their sexual freedom, their decision-making power and subjected to working for a clergy,” writes Kuong.
The work, which has comic novel elements, makes a connection between ancient Inca times and today.
The approach taken by Katika, who currently resides in Russia, is direct, humorous, and engages with modern life. Part of her crochet tryptic, “The Power of Handiwork I, II, III” shows a woman masturbating – but the artist created a sly commentary on contemporary internet culture with a “blurred” effect crocheted over the most intimate parts.
Hungarian-born Katika, who goes by just one name, writes in her statement that the woman in her work “symbolizes a fearless, independent warrior, unburdened by societal taboos, and focused on peace and creation.”
With “Clipped Wings, Amplified Voices,” Miami-based Haitian-American artist Laetitia Adam-Rabel, says in her artwork statement that the multi-media work reveals how, sometimes, “our greatest strengths come through when faced with our biggest challenges. It is about resilience, determination, faith and using our talents in the face of adversity.”
Keeping the art within the fiber realm is key to Prapopoulos’ intentions. Women from time immemorial have used tapestries, quilts and embroidery to express opinions and create commentary. Quilting, in particular, has a rich protest history – of which the AIDS Memorial Quilt is one fairly recent example.
“Fiber art, in my opinion, is the most subversive of mediums,” says Prapopoulos.
Because it is soft and has domestic associations, people may not get the idea right away, she added.
Visitors will certainly get the idea from the works in this show.