Throughout history, textiles have been so much more than fabric and thread. They’ve been vessels for storytelling, protest, identity and change. From the Gee’s Bend Quilters of Alabama, who stitched bold, improvisational quilts that carried the spirit of the civil rights movement, to the Suffragettes, who embroidered their messages of defiance and solidarity onto humble handkerchiefs, stitch has long been a tool for making voices heard.
Today, this tradition lives on in what’s sometimes referred to as craftivism. Where craft meets gentle protest and social or political commentary. Unlike placards or chants, craftivism is quieter but no less powerful. It draws people in with beauty, care and skill, then holds their attention with ideas that spark reflection, conversation, and sometimes even change.
It’s easy to see why textiles are such a natural medium for activism. They carry associations of home, comfort and labour, yet they can also be deeply symbolic. To reframe something as familiar as cross-stitch, embroidery or quilting into a platform for activism is both surprising and moving. It asks us to pause, look closer, and connect with an issue in a new way.
Here at the School of Stitched Textiles, we often celebrate and review artists who use their work to advocate for something bigger than themselves. In the past, we’ve explored artists inspired by and championing women’s rights, and we’ve also highlighted creators who use textiles to raise awareness of the fragility of the ocean.
This time, we’re broadening the lens to shine a light on a wide range of modern fibre and textile artists whose activism takes many forms. Whether they’re addressing race, gender, the environment, or human rights, each of these makers proves that art has the power not just to decorate, but to motivate, challenge, and inspire.
Before we start...
Don’t forget to check out our other blogs in the Artists you Have to Follow Series.
- 10 Incredible Abstract Textile Artists
- 10 Textile Sculptors
- 10 Textile Artists Inspired by Animals
- 10 Textile Artists Inspired by Architecture
- 9 Textile Artists Inspired by Food
- Textile Artists Inspired by Nature
- 10 Textile Portrait Artists
- 10 Contemporary Felt Artists
- Machine Embroidery Artists You Have to Follow
- Hand Embroidery Artists You Have to Follow
- Inspiring Patchwork Quilt Artists You Have to Follow
- Inspiring Knit Artists You Have to Follow
8 Textile Artists Inspired by Activism
1. Natalie Baxter
Located in Brooklyn, soft sculptor Natalie Baxter creates plush and droopy creations that quietly confront America’s most controversial symbols and conversations. She transforms quilting and sewing techniques, passed down by her Appalachian grandmother, into playful, subversive artworks that examine everything from gun culture and gender stereotypes to internet trolling and invisible labour.
Her Warm Gun series reimagines assault rifles and handguns as colourful, pillow-like caricatures. You’ll spot them drooping in vibrant colours, giving them a less-threatning quality. It’s a disarming twist on hyper-masculine iconography, inviting audiences to reconsider power, safety, and the place of craft in political commentary.
But Natalie doesn’t stop at guns. In works like Alt Caps and Bloated Flags, she channels trolling comments and national symbols into soft sculptures that echo suffragette banners and protest art. With humour and warmth, she turns digital hate into physical empathy, making us question the messages we send and the voices we dismiss.
Follow Natalie Baxter
Website: www.nataliebaxter.com
Instagram: @nattybax
2. Shannon Downey
You’ve probably seen one of her bold, hand‑stitched protest pieces and felt a spark. Meet Shannon Downey, the force behind Badass Cross Stitch. She calls herself an “artist, activist, craftivist, community builder, and general instigator,” and she means it. Through colourful, witty needlework, she transforms embroidery from gentle and domestic into a rebellious tool against patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy.
Shannon didn’t start with overt politics. It was a Captain Picard cross-stitch that rekindled her joy in making things away from screens, and before long, she was stitching her frustrations about issues like gun violence and gender inequality and posting them to Instagram. When her “Boys Will Be Boys (held accountable for their f***ing actions)” piece exploded online around #MeToo, the world started paying attention.
What sets her apart is how she turns online outrage into real-life connection. That unfinished quilt she found? She crowdsourced its completion from her stitch‑happy community, then took it on the road and turned craft into conversation. She doesn’t just make; she mobilises. From quilt‑making to touring the US in an RV, Shannon brings people together to stitch, question, and build together.
Follow Shannon Downey
Website: www.badasscrossstitch.com
Instagram: @badasscrossstitch
3. Bonnie Peterson
Bonnie Peterson is part scientist, part storyteller, transforming climate data into tactile textile narratives. Her art springs from a deep interest in glaciers, fire ecology, atmospheric shifts and permafrost, but instead of leaving the information locked away in charts or journals, she embroiders it onto silk, velvet and topographic maps. The result is a body of work that is visually striking while carrying the urgency of climate science stitched into every surface.
What makes Bonnie’s practice so powerful is the way she humanises data. With a background in statistics, marketing research and an MBA, she takes graphs and figures that might otherwise feel intimidating and translates them into something everyone can understand. Think embroidered CO₂ curves, stitched ocean heat patterns, or map collages that trace wildfire scars. Her collaborations with scientists from glaciologists to NASA researchers form the foundation of her storytelling.
Bonnie is also an adventurer at heart, drawing inspiration from backpacking in the Sierra Nevada and residencies in national parks. Her textiles carry both awe and alarm. They remind us of the beauty of the natural world while insisting we confront the reality of its fragility. By stitching climate science into cloth, she makes knowledge tangible and helps turn awareness into action.
Follow Bonnie Peterson
Website: bonniepeterson.com
Instagram: @writebon
4. Kate Tume
Kate Tume is a self-taught textile artist from Brighton whose richly embroidered works blend myth, folklore and sacred imagery with urgent contemporary issues. Her portraits of birds, beasts and otherworldly figures shimmer with surface embroidery and goldwork, yet beneath the beauty is a strong activist voice. Kate uses her art to confront the environmental crisis, highlighting how colonialism, capitalism and white supremacy continue to shape our relationship with the natural world.
Much of her work advocates for conservation and the decolonisation of environmental movements. She calls attention to the role of indigenous land defenders and the need to include diverse voices in the fight to protect our ecosystems. By transforming animals into icons and relics, she asks us to consider what we hold sacred on this planet and how much we stand to lose.
Since the death of her husband in 2021, Kate’s work has also moved deeply into themes of grief and transformation. Her textile masks act as ritual objects, created to help process loss and open a space for healing. Through these pieces she continues to advocate for empathy, remembrance and respect, both for people and for the fragile natural world we share.
Follow Kate Tune
Website: madebymothereagle.com
Instagram: @mother_eagle_arts
5. Alexandra Kehayoglou
Alexandra Kehayoglou is not just a textile artist. She’s an environmental guardian, translating lost rivers, wetlands and wildlands into lush, immersive carpets that invite us to tread more gently on our planet. Growing up in Buenos Aires surrounded by trees, streams and gardens, Alexandra inherited her family’s carpet-making craft. However, she transformed it into something poetic and urgent. Her grandparents fled Isparta due to conflict, bringing their weaving traditions along, and ever since, her art has carried both that legacy and a modern ecological message.
Using reclaimed yarn from her family’s factory, each work is an intimate, hand-tufted homage to environments under threat. Whether that’s the vanished Raggio Creek, the dam-planning Santa Cruz River, or the shrinking Paraná Delta wetlands. Her practice quietly re-envisions activism; the carpets become contemplative landscapes underfoot, urging us to sit, reflect, and feel what we’re losing. She puts it simply: if activism rings the alarm, art offers connection and hope.
These textiles might invite us to lie upon them, but they also invite us to act. Alexandra’s work reminds us that beauty doesn’t have to be urgent in tone to carry gravity. It can be whisper-sharp: a map of memory, grief, and optimism stitched into rugs that insist we look closer and care harder.
Follow Alexandra Kehayoglou
Website: alexandrakehayoglou.com
Instagram: @alexandrakehayoglou
6. Kandy G Lopez
Kandy G. Lopez is an Afro-Caribbean American artist whose bold, life-size portraits give visibility to people and communities often overlooked. Working with yarn, mesh, paint and mixed media, she creates richly textured works that celebrate the strength, style and presence of her subjects. Raised in a Dominican household and now an Associate Professor of Art in Florida, Kandy draws on her own experiences of navigating multiple identities to create pieces that are both personal and political.
Her portraits are more than representations, they’re acts of advocacy. By depicting BIPOC and marginalised individuals with confidence and vibrancy, Kandy challenges stereotypes and makes their stories impossible to ignore. Materials like mesh and donated yarn add layers of meaning, evoking resilience, community and the shifting nature of visibility.
Whether through large-scale installations or intimate portraits, Kandy uses fibre art as a form of activism: insisting that those who are too often unseen are not only present, but powerful. Her work invites viewers into dialogue, encouraging empathy and recognition while stitching dignity and justice into every thread.
We’ll be chatting to Kandy over on our Podcast in the next few month so keep your eyes peeled for this interview.
Follow Kandy G Lopez
Website: www.kandyglopez.com
Instagram: @kandyglopez
7. Malgorzata Mirga-Tas
Małgorzata Mirga-Tas is a Polish Romani visual artist, sculptor, painter, educator and activist based in Czarna Góra, a Romani village near the Tatra Mountains. Through radiant textile collages made from found fabrics such as curtains, scraps and old clothes, she reclaims the Roma’s place in visual history. Her work blends baroque ornament with everyday scenes, drawing on layers of community memory and personal history to subvert stereotypes and reframe Roma identity.
She became the first Roma artist to represent a country at the Venice Biennale in 2022 with her monumental textile series Re-Enchanting the World. Mirga-Tas does not stop at making art; she also educates, organises and builds platforms for others. She co-founded a Romani art movement in Poland in 2007, has created artist villages and contributes actively to the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture. Her practice is deeply rooted in community and collective visibility.
Her textiles feel like living histories. They honour Roma women in particular and challenge audiences to move beyond stereotypes to see real lives and voices. Warm, generous and unapologetically political, Mirga-Tas uses her art as a force for change, proving that fabric can be as powerful as any protest banner.
Follow Małgorzata Mirga-Tas
Website: www.frithstreetgallery.com
Instagram: @gosiamirga
8. Billie Zangewa
Billie Zangewa is a Malawian artist who creates intricate collaged tapestries from fragments of raw silk. Now based in Johannesburg, she works with textiles in a painterly way to centre Black womanhood in all its strength and tenderness. At first glance her scenes might appear domestic, such as running a bath, styling her hair or walking with her son, yet these choices are deliberate and radical. By elevating ordinary moments, Billie confronts the invisibility of women’s labour and advocates for what she calls daily feminism. Her work turns the personal into the political, asking us to reflect on whose stories are seen and valued.
Her advocacy is clear. By portraying herself and other Black women as protagonists rather than subjects under the male gaze, she challenges stereotypes about gender, race and beauty. The silk she uses adds another layer of meaning. Its delicate yet resilient quality mirrors the strength she celebrates in her subjects. In societies that often overlook the work of women, particularly Black women, her tapestries reclaim space with quiet but determined authority.
Billie Zangewa deserves a place in any discussion about activism in textiles because she redefines what resistance looks like. Instead of placards or slogans, she stitches scenes of care, love and survival. Her work shows that visibility, dignity and representation are powerful forms of protest in their own right, reminding us that activism can be tender as well as bold.
Follow Billie Zangewa
Instagram: @billiezangewa
