Stitching stories and the feminist revival of Greek embroidery in Melbourne

At the heart of Melbourne’s multicultural arts scene, artist Sonia Zymantas is quietly reshaping what it means to inherit tradition through thread, fabric, and dialogue

Sonia Zymanta organizes workshops that utilize embroidery not only to honor cultural heritage, but also to redefine it / SBS Greek: Panos Apostolou

Born in Australia to Greek parents, her mother from Corfu and her father from Katerini, Sonia Zymantas grew up straddling two cultures.

“There was always embroidery in the house,” she recalls. “It was part of the women’s culture."

But Sonia avoided the needle and thread. “I wasn’t aspiring to be a housewife,” she told SBS Greek.

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Sonia Zymantas' Embroidery as empowerment of a feminist revival

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But years later, with daughters of her own, the symbolic weight of the needlework found its way back to her as empowerment.

Sonia facilitates workshops that use embroidery not only to honour heritage, but to subvert it.

What emerges from these sessions is more than textile art but a quiet kind of resistance, a feminist act.

Embroidery by participants in a workshop by Sonia Zymantas that took place in June 2025 at the "Demokritos" Labor Union hall in Melbourne / SBS Greek: Panos Apostolou