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Remal Arif was born in 2001, in Pakistan. She is studying for a bachelor’s degree in Textile Engineering from NED University of Engineering and Technology. She is also an artist whose work has been exhibited in London, Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and in many other countries. Willing to combine her STEM background with her passion for art and social change, Remal founded Brown People Arts magazine.
“These different fibres are blended to strengthen the fabric transforming us into something different, something more valuable. Undertaking different practices and experiments and knotting them into something new can change the way we think about ourselves. We understand we are our own best friends. We can comfort ourselves with words we want to hear. New dots are connected, and new connections are made of the world within us”
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Pandemic, 2021, acrylic on paper, is a series of digital illustrations on pain, struggle, insecurities, and fears represented as pieces of yarn woven and knotted together with hope and dreams. During the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone faced mental, physical, and emotional struggles that were knotted within themselves. “These different fibres are blended to strengthen the fabric transforming us into something different, something more valuable. Undertaking different practices and experiments and knotting them into something new can change the way we think about ourselves. We understand we are our own best friends. We can comfort ourselves with words we want to hear. New dots are connected, and new connections are made of the world within us” said Remal.
Women of science have often used crocheting and clothes stitching to help understand complex scientific processes and facts. This was the case of pioneering French midwife Angélique du Coudray (1712-1794) who created a mannequin of textiles to teach trainee midwives on all steps of properly attending childbirth. At that time, female midwives were barred from medical studies. In 1759, du Coudray published a midwifery manual “Abrégé de l’art des accouchements” illustrating important manoeuvres to preserve the safety of women and their new-borns at the moment of birth.
Her trainees practiced various manipulations in mock births on the life-size obstetrical mannequin and were well prepared to handle dangerous situations, such as with twins and breech presentation. Du Coudray succeeded against the opposition of male surgeons when Louis XV recognized that she was instrumental to reducing chid mortality and commissioned her to travel across France to teach the art of midwifery. She taught thousands of students and even male medical doctors and became a symbol of French medical progress.
