Threads of participation: Crafting female agency in a collaborative art project in Denmark

Abstract In 2020, Trapholt (a Danish museum of modern art, craft and design) and textile designer Iben Høj launched a grand collaborative art project involving almost 800 embroiderers. The project, named Stitches Beyond Borders, was part of the centenary celebratrions of Denmark’s reunification with Southern Jutland, and participants were asked to embroider their personal vision of borders. By using a mixed method approach we firstly analyse how Stitches Beyond Borders, as a collaborative art project, created a strong sense of community and cultivated creative agency. Secondly, we focus on the discursive nature of the female public created by the art project. Taking into account the rich and complex history of embroidery as an underestimated female activity tied to repressive power mechanisms, we discuss whether the project ends up merely (re)creating an innocuous female public by favouring a personal take on the border theme.