warmi küyen textile collective

“100 Butterflies For The Eradication of Gender Violence”,  2025

Designed and embroidered by a female textile collective, this “arpillera” displays over 120 butterflies, embroidered by more than 100 people during 16 political textile workshops. The Textile Collective held these workshops between November 2024 and March 2025 in several cities in the Netherlands to encourage reflection on, and action against gender-based violence worldwide. The Arpillera was inspired by two symbols of feminist resistance in the fight for fundamental equality and human rights: the Chilean arpillera, a political textile that emerged as an expression of resistance against the violent civil-military dictatorship of A. Pinochet (1973-1990), and the butterflies, in memory of the Mirabal sisters from the Dominican Republic, known as ‘the butterflies’, murdered during the military dictatorship of R. Trujillo (1930-1961).