Women’s Woven Voices at the Parliament of the World’s Religions by Brecia Kralovic-Logan

Imagine walking into a space surrounded by the woven stories of 1,000 women from around the globe and feeling you are at home. The Women’s Village at the Parliament of the World’s Religions conference in Chicago in August of 2023 offered a place where women could feel welcomed, safe, understood, honored, and inspired. It was surrounded by the color and texture of the Women’s Woven Voices project tapestry.

I am the founder of the international, collaborative, art project- Women’s Woven Voices- that supports women in claiming their powerful voices through writing, weaving, and sharing their stories. For six years I had been inviting women to reflect on their lives, write about their strengths, challenges, joys and what made them feel whole, and then, weave a strip of cloth to represent their story. I collected the woven “Story Cloths” and stitched them together into a collective tapestry. Having stitched over 1,000 stories into the tapestry from women from 10 different countries, I applied to participate in the Parliament as an art installation and then joined the Women’s Task Force to create a very special space for the thousands of women who would be attending the Parliament.

The Parliament of the World’s Religions (PoWR) has since 1893 been the largest gathering of interfaith leaders, educators, clergy, scientists, thought leaders, students, activists, indigenous peoples, seekers, artists, and community builders focused on solutions for global problems and for fostering understanding and collaboration. The 2023 event had over 7,000 attendees from 95 countries and hundreds of different faiths and spiritual practices. The Women’s Village was a first for the event and was the heart center for the women’s programming.

Sharing the Women’s Woven Voices project at the Parliament had a profound impact on me and many women participants shared that the project resonated deeply and felt powerfully meaningful. The vivid colors, wild textures, vast array of personal embellishments, and the bright red fringe at the bottom of each panel dazzled the eye and called your attention while also creating a graceful holder of the space for the village and all who entered there.

Let me take you through the journey that brought this project to be a part of the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

The idea for the project was conceived during a women’s conference that I had produced in Vancouver, Washington to celebrate International Women’s Day in 2017. We had invited 6 amazing women to share their stories with the participants throughout the day. As the last speaker took the stage, she pointed out that several of the previous speakers had courageously included their experiences of abuse or sexual assault in their stories. She wanted to acknowledge this and asked the audience if they had been affected by some type of abuse if they would stand. As 300 women rose to their feet, I knew that I was being called as an artist to make art that shared women’s stories and supported women’s voices. The Women’s Woven Voices project was conceived to promote creativity, community, and compassion as a counter to the inequity, abuse, and violence that women experience around the world.

I am an artist working mostly with mixed media and fiber and I knew a simple weaving method that could be done by anyone. Soon the plan for the project became clear and a website was created. There are three parts to the project. First women are invited to reflect and write about their lives. I provide writing prompts on the website and the writing is completely meant as a tool for the individuals. Second, they are invited to weave a “Story Cloth” that represents their story. There are tutorial videos for every step of the process on the website as well. Finally, participants could share their story by sending me their Story Cloth to be included into the collective tapestry.

Each woven strip is a uniquely beautiful statement of one woman’s story. The invitation to create the weaving was flexible. Some people chose their colors and weaving materials to represent their responses to the writing prompts, others wove a timeline of their life with each color representing significant events or people, and others chose to weave intuitively letting memories, thoughts and feelings emerge in the process. Everyone was invited to embellish their story cloth with any additional objects that they thought would help tell their story.

Once I set a goal of creating a tapestry with 1,000 story cloths from women from around the globe, I began to offer workshops. I reached out to collaborate with many groups and organizations including The Charter for Compassion, SARAH4Hope, Compassionate Arts, San Diego Veterans Museum, The San Diego Veteran Women’s Network, the University of San Diego Conscious Leadership Academy, The International Women’s Festival Pacific Northwest, The SHIFT Network, the Handweavers Guild of America, The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women NGO, and Front Porch senior living communities.

I held a workshop for women who were refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq and workshops for teens at risk from sex trafficking. There were workshops with women’s organizations, art groups, church and community groups, University students, and seniors living in both independent living and assisted living communities. Mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces, cousins, roommates, students, veterans, Girl Scouts, artists, and people of different races, and gender identities are all represented in the woven tapestry.

Walking into the Women’s Village at PoWR you were embraced by the finished tapestry and enveloped in a visual kaleidoscope that some have said emanates a vibration of love, strength, courage, creativity, and compassion.

The Women’s Woven Voices tapestry is now looking for a permanent home. 

For more information: 

www.womenswovenvoices.com
https://www.facebook.com/WomensWovenVoices
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk5t4HXHdRoFMlNSMiv-oAA

BIO: Brecia Kralovic-Logan is a nationally recognized artist and champion for women’s voices. She is the author of The Spiral of Creativity- Mastering the Art of a Spirited Life. She teaches and speaks at international art conferences and exhibits nationally. She founded the International Women’s Festival Pacific Northwest to celebrate International Women’s Day and has served in the Women’s Sector of the Charter for Compassion. She currently promotes creativity, community, and compassion through the Women’s Woven Voices project- an international, collaborative, fiber art project that supports women power through writing, weaving, and sharing stories.

www.breciacreative.com
www.thespiralofcreativity.com
www.womenswovenvoices.com