Artist Uses Quilting to Advocate for Social Change

When Dawn Piasta found herself a fresh empty nester with a lot of time on her hands, instead of sitting back and relaxing she actively went searching for somewhere her time could go to good use. A longtime quilter, she was excited to find a quilt challenge extended by the United Nations Global Fund. While she didn’t know much about the work of the United Nations when she started, she immediately dove in to researching several of their ongoing projects and found she really connected with the work they were doing to combat malaria.

Her quilt called “Halla”, which means “unexpected gift”, was the result. It was exhibited at the United Nations in Geneva with 25 to 30 other quilts. More than that, Piasta connected with a local organisation that raised money for mosquito nets to send overseas.

Piasta was invited to attend the grand opening of the UN exhibit and says she was overwhelmed to find herself next to people who she felt had done great works for the UN. As she puts it, here she was, a quilter and farm girl from Dauphin, Manitoba, being treated as an equal to people she considers global leaders. That demonstration of the power of quilting as a global language inspired her to continue using her quilting for advocacy.

Halla has since been displayed throughout Europe and North America, including at universities that offer human rights programs of study.

After journeying with her quilt, Piasta’s son asked her why she had to go so far away to help people, so her next project was much closer to home.

“She Reclaims Her Voice” is a piece that was the result of Piasta collaborating with a friend at Opaskwayak Cree Nation. It depicts a woman holding sage with a star blanket over her shoulders, and is based on a real photograph (used with permission) but is representative of so many other women and the strength that they have needed to make themselves heard. As Piasta says, “women and girls are not a special interest group” and their voices have been suppressed for too long, particularly Indigenous women. The quilt was featured at the 2022 Eleanor Rose quilt show and has also been exhibited widely.

Piasta also teaches quilting around the region and shares the stories of her quilting advocacy, including demonstrating how to make Kawandi-inspired quilts, a technique derived from diasporic African people living in India.