Research I have been involved with in South Sudan exploring art heritage and resilience has opened my eyes to the depth of insight that can be drawn through a single art form. The adoption of an arts heritage lens can help an outsider, such as myself, gain nuanced and complex perspectives into the lives of women and girls in fragile contexts such as South Sudan.
My research focus has always been on gender as a unit of power that works to marginalise and oppress women and girls rendering them vulnerable to violence. This viewpoint can easily lead to over-simplistic and essentialist images of women as victims which post-colonial scholars have exposed as racialised and a product of a Eurocentric hegemony.
In a context such as South Sudan, it is all too easy to slip into such a problematic narrative because of the horrific legacy of war seen in many ways not least the high prevalence of gendered violence. This singular outlook misses the ways in which women and girls express their agency and build resilience.
I have had the privilege of working with The Likikiri Collective, a multimedia arts-based organisation based in Juba, and through their partnership, I have been introduced to an array of different art forms and artists. Each form of art carries a number of powerful narratives about the history of the country and also the life of the artists.
The stories told through art are sometimes painful, but often also carry motifs of hope and joy which reflect the resilience of people determined not to be defined by war and generations of cruel, corrupt political regimes. Let me explore further through one specific example which resonates still with me and which more than any other form has helped me appreciate the importance of seeing the world through an art heritage lens.
The passages relayed below are taken from the transcript of a story circle. The qualitative approach of story circles has been pioneered by The Likikiri Collective. The approach involves using stories as a way of gently and ethically listening to and recording personal narratives which might be sensitive and personal.
I did not facilitate the story circle from which I take these passages, the stories belong to the women who shared them with researchers from The Likikiri Collective. I present passages here reflecting on my personal journey of learning about how women navigate complex pathways in South Sudan, and how art can shape a lens that allows outsiders to see a more accurate and balanced picture of female agency, dignity and resilience.
In South Sudan, female milaya artists are well known for beautiful embroidery on bedsheets and pillows.[1] Through exploring milaya through the narratives of the artists I was able to gain a sense of how a simple yet beautiful art form can do many things simultaneously.
Creating resilience through art
I embroider the beauty that is my head and not the dead trees around me
Quote from one of the milaya artists
The process of embroidering bed sheets creates spaces for women to come together to share experiences and train each other. As the quote above suggests, the creation of patterns reflects the beauty that often comes from the imagination and not the realities of hardship around. The creative process itself is beneficial giving time to process and strategies coping and resilience mechanisms.
Most importantly, bedsheets fetch significant figures and are prized marriage gifts. Many women proficient in this art have been able to sustain themselves and their children when displaced from other families due to the ongoing conflict in South Sudan.
Many different insights and experiences of resilience emerge through just this one art form. The stories in the circle data contrast starkly with the current dominance in the humanitarianism of a technocratic definition of resilience measured practically in terms of food security and livelihood opportunities. The process of embroidering with other women creates space for them to speak about their lives and their art form.
In listening to them speak an outsider can understand the complexity of resilience. Financial independence is critical but so too are self-worth and dignity.
Insights from the story circle on bedsheets
The story circle that focused on bed sheets took place in September 2019 and consisted of 7 women all active in embroidery, all married with children aged between mid-twenties to fifty.
Bedsheet embroidery provides a livelihood
The quotes that follow show that strong messages of resilience came through as the women shared their motivations for embroidering bed sheets:
I still do bedsheets for myself and for selling … I sell to help my children.
The view was clear:
If you have a handicraft it can help your children.
Another woman shared:
In fact, it rescued me as I had children who were doing exams, to me these boys are my life.
I embroider for my future to build a house. This embroidery I do at home and it is my skill which I help myself with one day because if the man says he has nothing you cannot pressure him to bring but if you have bedsheets you can help your husband and children.
Marriage is a market for bedsheets
There is an important link between income generation from selling bedsheets and marriage. Whilst much has been written by feminist scholars on the patriarchal nature of bride price and its link to women’s vulnerability and violence, in this story circle a picture of women capitalising from the process of marriage emerges.
Bedsheets are the first gift given to the groom’s family. The value of bedsheets is huge, they are expensive.
So marriage is a key market for the sale of bedsheets that women benefit from despite the deeper structural inequalities resulting from bride price and marriage. The circle revealed that it is not just income attached to bedsheets that are valued but also the emotional expression involved in creating them.
Bedsheets are an expression of love
We women, we don’t give to anyone, you have to give to someone who is dear and you value.
So giving or selling bedsheets is also seen as an expression of love and affection.
The emotional dimension of bedsheets can also be seen in a strong link to self-esteem.
I mean when you cloth the bed with this you will find yourself that you are a woman, I mean when you cloth the beds with these you will find yourself changed in the house and your self-esteem goes high when your guests come you feel yourself, you are a woman can you see how it is … and when guests come and see the sheets and marvel, you will be very happy.
Commercialisation of bedsheet production is a concern
Concerns were discussed over losing the practice to commercial industrial production.
Machine embroidery is there like this one has been done but we for us women of South Sudan we love the thing you do with your own hands that is why you see it many even if for example I have a daughter and she is getting married but if I do set to do embroidery they will know I have something of value with strong meaning that is why we see that we are not going to leave even though a company comes and better and better comes the thing you make with your hands.
The sense of pride and dignity gained through the process of creating bedsheets is very clear in the above passage. So too is the sense that it must be passed down.
A skill to be passed on between generations
And we will teach the children so our mothers did not fail they did what they are supposed to do and we should also do what we are supposed to.
She has valued her bedsheets she does not look at the sixty-something she looks at the bedsheet which has been clothed on the bed as something and she demands more for her own value, this is our value for the bedsheets we embroider.
The embroidering activity creates social capital
Social capital is also clear, one woman shared:
So they are here as a group of women and they are good to each other and they chat.
Emotional and psychological resilience is critical in enduring decades of uncertainty and insecurity.
I embroider things that link to mood for instance a vase or ornament, a plant like you can see in this one. For me, I will be in my dark room but looking at the flowers. I mean I love them; a human can live by this bedsheet.
Another woman shared:
The bedsheet will come out the flower you wanted … one day I sewed a bedsheet with colours and it was an elephant. I was in Yei (2006) one night I covered my bed with the bedsheet I saw an elephant. I liked it. I drew it immediately at night using a torch it was going well I drew it on a white bed sheet. You look for the drawings that go close to the one you have in your mind. If brown is out there it won’t be good and the place of red if green is put it won’t be good and the place of violence is brown and it won’t be good.
In these passages, the process of designing and sewing the sheets offers an escape from the violence around them. Looking at the finished piece brings happiness and self-esteem.
The tree now you cannot draw it as it is not beautiful, there are some beautiful trees you can draw yes like these.
Clearly through the stories told around bedsheets an incredibly rich and touching picture emerges depicting a variety of ways resilience is expressed and experienced.
This one story circle alone has opened my eyes to the power of art as a lens through which to interact with the complexities of human relationships but also as a source of financial and emotional resilience.
[1] See https://www.facebook.com/milayaproject/ for examples and more information