CAREN GARFEN

 babes in the wood, 2022

SELECTED - uk

The Grimm Fairy Tales were used as propaganda during the Third Reich. In 1940, the German film industry, under the guidance of Josef Goebbels, produced nine feature films based on fairy tales. Little Red Riding Hood (Rotkäppchen) was twisted into a tale of the wolf who was characterised as a big, bad Jewish character who devours the innocent little German girl and her grandmother. Little Red Riding Hood skips through the wood in a cloak decorated with swastikas and is rescued from the Big Bad Wolf by a man wearing an SS uniform in the guise of Adolf Hitler. Goebbels’ plan was to sew a seed of racial superiority in the minds of German children, and to regard Hitler as a hero.

Each of the innocent little Jewish children on the wooden cubes are all holding their favourite toy, be it a doll, a teddy bear or a bucket and spade. They were all murdered in the Holocaust.

Featured in: Cloth Stories, Ali Ferguson, Batsford Books, 2024, pages 102-103

Measurement: 15.5cm x 15.5cm x 26cm

Process: Hand stitch, digital fabric printing

Materials: Vintage wooden Grimm’s fairy tale puzzle (origin Germany), textile, silk threads

Exhibited in:

Essence, The 62 Group at 60, The Knitting & Stitching Show, Alexandra Palace, London (6 - 9 October 2022)

Essence, The 62 Group at 60, The Knitting & Stitching Show, Harrogate (17 - 20 November 2022)

Fabricated? Solo Exhibition, London, England (1 October 2024 - 15 February 2025)

comments

• Tiny stitching that expresses an immense history

• Looking at your transformation of one of my childhood toys, I’m very impressed and would love to see them in real (Germany)

• People have been in awe of your stitching on our stand