Threads of Life

In Tudor England Mary Queen of Scots was under house arrest and her letters were censored so she sewed secret treason into her needlework to communicate with the world outside. From the political propaganda of the Bayeux Tapestry to the maps sewn by schoolgirls in the New World Threads of Life stretches from medieval France to contemporary Mexico from a POW camp in Singapore to a family attic in Scotland. It is a chronicle of identity protest memory power and politics told through the stories of the men and women who have used the language of sewing to make their voices heard even in the most desperate of circumstances.