‘I thought, if only I was cross-stitching a quote by Ghandi’: Sarah Corbett, founder of the Craftivist Collective, embroiders her way into the corridors of power.
The word ‘activism’ has always scared me. I care deeply about certain issues, but have often felt marginalised by aggressive messaging and alienated by all the shouting. I am surprised to hear that lifelong campaigner, Sarah, felt the same. ‘I like reading Vogue magazine’, she tells me - the first in a long line of revelations - ‘and when I moved to London, I joined all these activist groups. I thought, these will be my people, I care about this. Then I brought Vogue in my bag into one meeting, and they told me to leave. They said, ‘you can’t love Vogue and fashion and be a part of this.’’ This level of animosity shocked Sarah and eventually led her to creating the Craftivist Collective, a movement she coined as ‘gentle protest’, which encourages ‘slow, soothing and thoughtful processes of craft’, to calm oneself and the world around us. Her manifesto is galvanising, its success rate extraordinary. Sarah works with huge names from the V&A to the British Museum (more on that later), and is kept afloat by patrons who allow her to work for free, when she deems the cause worthy. She has created her own, unique business model and despite being offered investment and charitable status, she declares herself ‘purposefully a one woman band!’
Considering her background, perhaps there was never any doubt that Sarah was going to work in the humanitarian sector. She is from Everton and ‘grew up seeing inequality on my doorstep’. At the age of 3, she was squatting in social housing to protest its closure: ‘we won! The housing is still there’. Her father was a vicar, her mother an MP, and activism is part of her DNA, her childhood a tapestry of causes and campaigns; some wins, some losses. ‘Most of the meetings in our community - whether it was for health centres or national issues - were in our vicarage kitchen with everyone smoking away, swearing like troopers. People of all faiths and non asking, who’s the decision makers? How do we target them? Who do we need on board that’s an ally, but maybe not from Everton? Shall we get it in the media? Shall we get someone from the House of Lords to talk about it? Shall we get MPs involved?’
After studying Religion and Theology at Manchester University, she spent many years working for various organisations and charities mostly ‘training people up as effective activists’. But she was burnt out, and it didn’t take her long to realise that her principles and values didn’t always align with those of the leading institutions in the field. ‘I’m always questioning things. I think it’s important with activism that we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. People are so binary thinking - we need nuance and we need to be pragmatic. Otherwise we just fight each other. Normally, things aren’t that black and white.’
I admire how quick she is to point out her potentially problematic – if you’re a dogmatic purist and like getting angry - career moments, including working for the British Museum, which is sponsored by BP. This is not a woman who takes decisions lightly. ‘The series of five events throughout the year were linked to the political exhibition that Ian Hislop set-up, called I Object. I wanted to do it because it had drop-in sessions for people who come from all over the world, a lot of whom might never have been involved in activism before, or might see themselves as apolitical and wouldn’t be interested in more extreme iterations. So I spoke to my friends who are part of climate campaign groups and protest a lot at the British Museum, and said I’m going to do this, but I don’t want you to challenge the Craftivist Collective, this exhibition is not paid for by BP. And I said to the museum, if anyone comes up to us and says what’s your stance on the BP sponsorship, I will say I don’t agree with it, here’s a campaign group you can join to protest against BP, we’re doing it for this reason. The staff were like fine, do it.’
Sarah has such an open and intuitive manner, she could get away with saying anything. She turned down another huge contract with a national museum because they were sponsored by a denim company that wanted her to use their products. ‘I’ve worked with the museum a lot and I said I know you’re going to hate me for this, but I just can’t do it. Please do think of me for other events. Then I said to the company, these are the reasons I’m not going to work with you, but now you know my boundaries and values, I’d love to work with you in the future if you fit them. And that was my gentle protest; to say stop goodwashing and greenwashing, it’s bad for your reputation! And you could see the staff – I met two of them in person – wanting to say, I agree! They were embarrassed.’
The craftivist kits Sarah makes at home by hand in her one bed apartment in Battersea are as grassroots as it comes, and I get the feeling that no matter how great her movement’s reach, this DIY ethos will never change. Her book, The Craftivist Collective Handbook: projects, stories and methods for your gentle protests, is released in May and was put together by a carefully selected group of collaborators. It is stylish, informative, inspiring and above all, unique; a call to arms in the most reasonable of terms.
I wonder what her next move is? ‘I think ‘scaling up’ means different things to different people. For me, I want to teach as many people in the world to be gentle craftivists and to add it to their activism toolkit, not to replace other forms of activism.’ She is even kind and egalitarian in her expansion plans, making sure there’s space for everyone.
Buy her book. The world needs more Sarah.
For further information on the Craftivist Collective click here.
