Skip to content Skip to footer

Making Waves

Sections

Convergence

Strategy

Feed Drop: Art Against Empire Ep. 1

Hosted by
Block & Build
Block & Build
Feed Drop: Art Against Empire Ep. 1
Loading
/

Art Against Empire, hosted by textile artist Ian Danger Capstick, examines the intersection of creativity and politics through conversations with artists, craftspeople, and activists who use making as a form of resistance.

The show features interviews with dozens of artists, crafters, and theorists from around the world exploring the history of makers fighting back against capital control of their craft—including Convergence’s very own Kimmie Dearest.

Art Against Empire, Episode 1 – Our Hands Know How to Build the World We Want

Quilters, blacksmiths, weavers, embroiderers – 25 artists across four countries using craft to fight systems of power. Welcome to Art Against Empire!

This series introduction launches a 16-episode journey featuring over two dozen artists, craftspeople, and theorists across four countries. You’ll hear from quilters stitching memorials to police violence victims, blacksmiths forging tools as acts of reclamation, embroiderers translating climate data into thread, and weavers who are building queer community.

Ian traces why empires from Rome to Britain built their wealth on controlling cloth, and why makers have always fought back. The history runs from the 1378 Ciompi Revolt through Gandhi’s spinning wheel to the AIDS Memorial Quilt that covered America’s National Mall.

Additional Resources

  • G92 – Learn more about those organizing to protect immigrants in Springfield, OH

Want more?

Tagged

About the Host

Cayden Mak
Cayden Mak

Cayden Mak is the publisher at Convergence Magazine and the host of Block & Build: Roadmaps for the Left.

Prior to Convergence, Cayden spent nearly a decade in various roles at 18 Million Rising, including five years as Executive Director and two as Chief Technology Officer, developing the organization inside and out into the digital-first anchor of national progressive Asian American organizing. His other movement work has included organizing for community-designed affordable housing with the Save E. 12th Coalition, co-founding Youngist, a youth media collective, organizing graduate research assistants for a labor union, and helping coordinate tracks and network gatherings at the Allied Media Conference. He serves as Chair of the Board of Directors for the Kairos Fellowship.