Crafting Resistance was formed in 2022, when The Textile Museum of Tilburg approached the crafting group of de Voorkamer, a community centre in Utrecht, to participate in the ‘Royal Embroidery Project.’ This project, commissioned by the Dutch royal house, aimed to replace a curtain in the palace Huis ten Bosch. 150 crafters, largely immigrants, were engaged to execute a predetermined design, under conditions that did not align with our values of collaboration and recognition of labour.

In response to this, we embroidered a manifesto, exhibited and distributed in the Textile Museum, criticising the project’s approach. Through this initiative, crafting resistance became an independent collective with an explicit focus on exposing colonial values in Dutch society and exploring the role of feminised labor in history, especially in the history of textile crafts.

Since then, we have embarked on collaborations with art institutions in the Netherlands, such as the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, seeking to apply feminist methodologies in exhibitions and public programs and bridging the gap between community art and fine art.

We are currently open for collaborations. We facilitate workshops and crafting sessions, make audio guides, curate exhibitions and are excited about archival work. Our aim is to bring together people of varying identities and migration backgrounds, invite them to think critically and to build community through crafting.