The Domestic Academics Quilt
The Domestic Academics: Finding the time to write and care. Storying the gendered inequalities of academic research in the global pandemic was a project devised, organised and run by Vanessa Marr from the University of Brighton.
This project brings together twenty-three women academics with caring responsibilities from across the UK, each of whom responded to a call to create a quilt panel that reflects their experience of working as an academic during the COVID-19 lockdowns from March 2020 to the Spring of 2021. They collaborated through a series of online workshops, finding strength and solidarity in the sharing of their stories through stitch and conversation. Please visit the Domestic Academic Quilt website to see the quilt, and click on each square to hear the stories.
I AM SORRY
I HAVE NOTHING LEFT
I AM SORRY - I HAVE NOTHING LEFT was a message to my family, friends, children, students, colleagues and employers that I was completely overwhelmed and burned out. My Domestic Academic Quilt response embodies the frustrations that I was feeling as a mother about how mothers and parents with primary caring responsibilities, and children were being ignored politically.
Inspired by the 1980s and 1990s clubs, badges and phone lines that I grew up with, (and frustrated about not getting answers) my quilt section included a speculative club, with badge and phone line. While this was a personal project and response, I wanted to connect the overlapping experiences of those who were experiencing all kinds of challenges that were being ignored and sidelined by Boris Johnsons government at the time.
These issues included educational and school exam result inequalities; issues with accessing maternity services for support networks, fathers and partners; playground and playgroup closures; inaccurate and misleading advice about the COVID-19 vaccine and pregnancy, lactation and fertility; discrimination and redundancy in precarious work; food insecurity and access to food, free school meals and food banks; education including home school, remote learning, school bubble closures, and university applications; access to exercise; access to mental health support; and long covid support.
