Art for social change
Challenging issues of consent and violence against women
Millie Barrow is an active feminist artist, whose practice centers around themes of solidarity, empowerment, and political protest. Her aim is to revive the voice of people who are muted and ignored by patriarchy, educating their predators through the liberating power of craft and applied arts.
Her final year piece - titled ‘Ethereal Armour’ - was a dress that Millie created by reviving material used and donated by women, representing sisterhood, solidarity, and empowerment.
Through dressmaking, Millie creates an armour that liberates victims of sexual assault and allows them a dominant voice. Her work marks the beginning of a journey to create for an army of women who are fighting to regain their voice within a battle of violence against women.
I radicalise the domestic scene and the clothing women wear with a needle and thread to create wording that disrupts the automated thinking of its viewer.
Millie’s other projects include Political Pillows, which radicalise the home space where discrimination goes unnoticed and unchallenged. Millie uses soft home furnishings (cushions and pillows) embroidered with statements that challenge the viewer and trigger important but uncomfortable conversations in the home. Empowerment Hoops is another project where Millie uses hoop embroidery to create empowering statements, creating decorative home pieces that turn rooms into empowered feminst chambers.
I want to expand my practice, develop my skills and become prouder in my work, breaking the imposter syndrome that haunts every artist and push my work into the real art world.
For her latest project, Millie launched The Radical Tea Room, which is a space dedicated to creating a safe environment where people can unify and dismantle internalised discriminatory patriarchal habits. It is an environment to both learn and unlearn, a space that acts as a book club, a space to hold challenging conversations and workshops, and a space to promote the importance of self-education, so we can become the best ally’s we can be to all members of our community.
Millie plans to travel across the country to community centres, schools, universities, and educational centres to promote her work in closing the gaps in society and create a platform un-represented groups can rely on to empower, unify, and support – a community-based space devoted to inclusion, rather than exclusion.
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