This work is from the series '#HEGEMONY' exemplifies a merger of traditional craft technique with contemporary political critique and layered community engagement. Initiated in 2020 as a virtual community project during the pandemic, this collective series brought together sixteen volunteers who overstitched trending Instagram hashtags on upcycled needlepoints, creating a multi-generational collaboration that honours the labour of anonymous original crafters alongside contemporary contributors. 

This layering of labour is central to the work's impact. Many of the needlepoints are kits designed after canonical works of art in the medium of painting. The needlepoints, completed by women whose names are lost to history, represent the devalued domestic work the exhibition seeks to reclaim. By overstitching these found pieces, we engaged in direct dialogue with these predecessors, transforming discarded craft objects into sites of political resistance by adding trending hashtags on Instagram. This palimpsest approach makes visible the historical erasure of women's textile work with an uncanny parallel between needlepoint stitches and digital pixels. Each needlepoint is a collaboration, attributed also to the volunteer who stitched the hashtag.

The project's pandemic origin adds resonance to the exploration of community. As we stitched from isolated homes, needlepoint became both solitary domestic labour and collective action, interrogating language and privilege through accumulated contributions. As a New Brunswick-based artist with a record of sustained community arts leadership, including KNIT FOR PEACE (2003) and SAVE OFFICER SQUARE (2018), I demonstrate decades of commitment to textiles as a political intervention, making #HEGEMONY essential to a collective interrogation of community, labour, and resistance.