In South Africa, The Siyazama Project enables rural, traditional craftswomen from KwaZulu-Natal to express their concerns about AIDS and all of its complexities through their beautiful cloth dolls and beadwork. The Siyazama Project and its producers communicate and spread awareness of HIV/AIDS through creative workshops, local and international exhibitions, museum collections, publications, and on-going research activities. Kate Wells, the leader of The Siyazama Project, has compiled this attractive, full colour book to illustrate the main collaborators' roles in Siyazama ('we are trying').

Quilts and Human Rights offers a new understanding of the history of global human rights as seen through textiles of awareness and activism. Of all the textile forms linked to human rights activities, one form—the quilt—has proved an especially potent and popular form for individuals, working alone or as part of organized groups, to subversively or overtly act for human rights. Through a description of this activity over time and space, Quilts and Human Rights advances awareness of critical human rights issues: suffrage, race relations, civil wars, natural disasters, HIV/AIDs, and ethnic, sexual, and gender discrimination. Quilts and Human Rights pays tribute to the individuals who have used needle skills to prick the conscience and encourage action against human rights violations.    

Name an illness, medical condition, or disease and you will find quiltmaking associated with it. From Alzheimer's to Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Lou Gehrig's Disease to Crigler-Najjar Syndrome, and for nearly every form of cancer, millions of quilts have been made in support of personal well-being, health education, patient advocacy, memorialization of victims, and fundraising. In Quilts and Health, Marsha MacDowell, Clare Luz, and Beth Donaldson explore the long historical connection between textiles and health and its continued and ever growing importance in contemporary society. This lavishly illustrated book brings together hundreds of health-related quilts-with imagery from abstract patterns to depictions of fibromyalgia to an ovarian cancer diary-and the stories behind the art, as told by makers, recipients, healthcare professionals, and many others. This incredible book speaks to the healing power of quilts and quiltmaking and to the deep connections between art and health.