A quiet act of resistance.

[Imnobody4]

Well done Jean Hatchet
Hardwick Hall mounts an exhibition
Material Power is a celebration of tapestry, embroidery and appliqué. Rewoven presents contemporary textile works that respond to, or work in conversation with, the historic surroundings and context of Hardwick Hall.

Displayed throughout the house and aligning with the key themes of Bess’s textile displays, they present and explore aspects of female experiences, identities and power. Connecting with stories told within Hardwick’s historic collection, they also offer reflection on the materiality and cultural symbolism of working with textiles.

"A trans activist stitched blue and pink colours over JK Rowling’s name. Everyone had contributed a name of a notable woman and just one name had been chosen to be erased. The trust and the artist let this nasty act stand. So I rectified it to the original intention of the woman who embroidered it."

https://x.com/JeanHatchet/status/1928853736732110921?t=vWcWLRFC9o56h18MlxACUg&s=19

Injustice corrected

x.com/JeanHatchet/status/1928791016909279683?t=YQ823sghYXT70YwBHQEn2w&s=19

A follow-up post to your last @Imnobody4
https://x.com/JeanHatchet/status/1929182281052086726
And screenshot for those not on X

Whaddya know, the National Trust is handwringing over Jean's actions. Oh boo hoo.

Latest developments reported here by the excellent Nick Wallis

Love it. Thanks for sharing, OP.

Good work by Jean. Worth pointing out as well she was a key figure in bringing together the British contingent of feminists that were heading to Eindhoven to protest Khelif. That planned protest was a key part in forcing World Boxing to admit Khelif was a man in the last few days. Not to mention helping in the resistance to the FA's attempt to end women's football which also recently triumphed.

Taking on World Boxing, the National Trust and of course the FA. Great stuff! The next set of establishment sexists better start getting worried.

Edited because I totally misunderstood the NT response… not enough coffee this morning.

Participants contributed to the work last year by embroidering virtues and values and the names of women they felt upheld them. Many names appear multiple times across the embroidery. This participation included the line stitched through a name. Invited participation ended in November 2024. As an artist and researcher, I am interested in the ways participation can engage visitors with heritage sites, and the ways participants choose to take part.

NT might be po-faced about this but reading between the lines I think the artist is delighted her work is getting renewed attention.

Next move by NT - Cover up whole work of art while deciding what to do.

'Visitors are now confronted by a sign which says “Unfortunately, the artwork has been tampered with by a member of the public. Please bear with us while we assess the piece and decide on the best course of action.”

genderblog.net/national-trust-covers-up-artwork-to-assess-it-after-stitching-over-jk-rowlings-name-is-removed/

I can sort of see the logic, if they claim it was okay to 'interact' with the artwork during the period of time stipulated, but not afterwards, then undoing the vandalism after that time is 'tampering' with it.

However, I'd say this is a 'read the room' moment.

What utter muppets!

they've spent months and years merrily dealing with the telegraph and the mail on social media with aplomb but they’re terrified of TRA being cross

Maybe they're nervous that TRAs might vandalise it again.

They could be considering the potential for more 'interaction', I'm sure.

Lovely jubbley well done Jean!

This.
As ever, unhinged transactivism must be pandered to while defaming women is par for the course for the NT.

Maybe they are going to re-embroider over it!!

If they do we'll just have to take the stitches out again and again until they learn

Maybe The NT will have an Ocado style epiphany soon when they realise which demographic are most likely to have a NT subscription.

Not TRAs thank goodness. Mind, the NT is obtuse in many ways. I love Hardwick Hall, and Bess of Hardwick was a remarkable woman - I think she'd see straight through both TRAs and NT handmaidens.

I like this. In the past, I have found using the word 'spiteful' against men surprisingly effective. They really don't like it. Wonder why?

Well isn't that interesting. It wasn't stitched over at Easter, but the NT is now saying it was closed to contributions from November 🤔. Hmmm.

Those stitches were very neat. I wonder who could have taken the time to do it? Especially after it was closed to contributions. It's all very mysterious. I can see why they've covered it over to investigate 🧐

May be pure coincidence, but I am reliably informed (happen to be in a WhatsApp group with the Mighty Lex) that there is a TRA docent at Hardwick Hall..

I'm not so sure about the logic. Surely what members of the public were invited to do was add names, not cover over names that others had added? As someone comments on the Nick Wallis blog, imagine if a visitor had embroidered over the name of Maya Angelou or Mother Teresa - would they have ben relaxed about that?

Indeed - Mother Theresa is a controversial figure for many but I can't imagine they would allow someone to erase her name in the same way.

Well what a very big coincidence that is. I'm sure one has absolutely nothing to do with the other. 🤔

I don't suppose you took a photo at the time did you?

Am I correctly understanding this?

Did the NT allow the trans activist to stitch over JKR s name ?