Art and Activism: Social Justice Sewing Academy Workshops for Riverside County Schools

Through Social Justice Sewing Academy workshops provided by UCR ARTS this year, high school students from Coachella Valley USD, Beaumont USD, Palm Springs USD, and Riverside USD are creating their own social justice quilts to represent issues and topics that are important to students in Riverside County.

Founded in 2017, the Social Justice Sewing Academy (SJSA) is a youth education program that bridges artistic expression with activism to advocate for social justice. Through a series of hands-on workshops across the country, SJSA empowers youth to use textile art as a vehicle for personal transformation and community cohesion and to become agents of social change.

UCR ARTS (California Museum of Photography and Culver Center of the Arts in downtown Riverside) is hosting an SJSA exhibition of community quilts and launched school workshops in Riverside County to give students in the Inland Empire area the opportunity to become a part of this movement.

The workshop includes a lesson on social justice, viewing quilts from the SJSA exhibition on view at UCR ARTS, and guidance on how to represent issues students care about through textile art.

Students then design and create their own quilt blocks around an issue or topic of their choice, one that is relevant to them or their community, using fabric and basting glue. Their blocks are sent to SJSA’s many embroidery volunteers with specific instructions from students on how to add details and enhance their design. Finally, the quilt blocks are sewn into a cohesive quilt by an SJSA long-arm quilter.

Some student quilts will be on view in the districts to celebrate student “artivists” while some will become a part of the SJSA collection to travel to museums, quilt shows, and galleries across the country to contribute to national conversations around social justice.

SJSA Virtual Exhibition
SJSA Website
RUSD ARTS project – RUSD teachers can sign up by January 26