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Gestures of Resistance, a creative/critical undertaking by Shannon Stratton and Judith Leemann, posits craft as methodology, extending its province to a range of performances that embody care through deliberate movements and canny gestures.

With particular interest in the relationship of slowness and agency, we delineate and then proceed to interrogate a species of action in which self-conscious crafting, contextual mischief-making, and cultural re-scripting play themselves out.

Gestures of Resistance works across the realms of writing, exhibition, and public dialogue.

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Judith Leemann is an artist, educator, and writer living in Boston. She received an M.F.A. in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004 and is currently teaching at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston and at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. She was assistant editor of the anthology The Object of Labor: Art, Cloth, and Cultural Production (School of the Art Institute of Chicago and MIT Press, 2007) and has recently published work in Frakcija performing art journal, Textile: A Journal of Cloth and Culture, and LTTR . Recent projects include flockstep , a commissioned public video projection and discontinuous, not unrelated , a research-based exhibition at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. She serves as senior artist in residence with the Boston-based Design Studio for Social Intervention. With Shannon Stratton she organized Gestures of Resistance: Craft, Performance, and the Politics of Slowness , a 2008 College Art Association conference panel, as well as a related exhibition in Dallas, Texas. They have co-curated a second iteration of the exhibition to run January - June, 2010 at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, OR and are in the process of co-editing the anthology Gestures of Resistance: The Slow Assertions of Craft. www.judithleemann.com

Shannon Stratton is co-founder and current Director and Chief Curator at ThreeWalls Chicago, a not-for-profit residency and exhibition space. She also curates independently and in collaboration with Jeff M Ward. Their most recent project Ps & Qs was at The Glassel School of Art, Houston and will travel to the Hyde Park Arts Center in Chicago in 2010. She has written for ArtUS and SOMA and her writing on contemporary craft and fiber art and exhibtions has been published by Ronsdale Press; NIU Gallery, Northern Illinois University, De Kalb; Fosdick-Nelson Gallery at Alfred University; Montreal Center for Contemporary Textiles; Tarble Arts Center, Eastern Illinois University and A + D Gallery, Columbia College. With Judith Leemann, she organized Gestures of Resistance: Craft, Performance, and the Politics of Slowness , a panel discussion and exhibition in Dallas, Texas. They are now co-editing the anthology Gestures of Resistance: The Slow Assertions of Craft. She teaches in the Art History and Arts Administration departments at The School of the Art Institute Chicago. www.three-walls.org

Libby O'Bryan (Curatorial Assistant) is a native mid-westerner who has returned to Chicago following a career in New York City's fashion industry. After graduating from The Fashion Institute of Technology in Fashion Design, she became Production Manager for Gary Graham Collections. She is now an Advanced Fiber and Material Studies BFA candidate at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.