Roberta explained the history of the arpillera tradition and its often communal dynamics, with women coming together in real life as well as on canvas to protest against armed violence and human rights abuses.

In the podcast, we discussed what these Conflict Textiles can teach us about habits of representing and visualising the consequences of war and we also reflected on how different art forms, including sewing and making, can help promote, envision and engender peace. In many cases, they embody the resilience of the people who created them, and they can be read as acts of resistance too: fabric forms of storytelling that advocate for justice and promote alternatives to conflict. These works of art not only depict conflict and its consequences. A digital version of the collection is based at Ulster University.

The exhibition was focused on different women’s experiences of survival, and it was inspired in part by a Peruvian arpillera (a form of tapestry) which Roberta had brought to a meeting, to illustrate how women on both sides of the long-running conflict in Peru during the 1980s and 1990s represented their experiences and used the stories they had sewn as testimony at the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission.įrom there, the idea of curating a physical and digital collection of Conflict Textiles grew – and today the collection comprises arpilleras, quilts and wall hangings from many different parts of the world, including Chile, Argentina, Northern Ireland, Croatia, Colombia, Germany, Catalonia, India, Zimbabwe and Syria. In 2008, Roberta was involved as guest curator at an exhibition called ‘The Art of Survival’, commissioned by the the Tower Museum and hosted in Derry-Londonderry. Photo Martin Melaugh, © Conflict Textiles ❽ónde están los desaparecidos? / Where are the “disappeared”? Chilean arpillera, Irma Müller, 1980s.

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