Scars & Quilt
In this free collaborative workshop, participants will sew and “scar” a communal blanket with stitches, creating marks to represent personal stories and giving voice to experiences that hold strong emotions and are often difficult to discuss.
Scars & Quilt is a participatory artwork that calls for sharing attention and empathy through craft and collaborative making.
It gives voice and presence to experiences that hold strong and complex emotions and are often difficult to discuss. These experiences are usually hidden and unspoken, therefore they are generally unacknowledged as in need to heal.
The workshop is in dialogue with Maayan Sophia Weisstub's installation The Bed as part of the Festival of Sleep and in connection to our Behind the Door Campaign to raise awareness of women homelessness.
During the workshop, participants will sew a bed cover together, and “scar” the communal blanket with stitches - creating marks to represent personal stories. The blanket will serve as a communication method, manifesting the unvoiced experiences. The quilt blanket would evolve as an artefact while further participants add to it, making it an immersive experience that promotes a communal sewing circle, sharing stitching techniques and giving presence to shared stories.
The concept of the collaborative quilt blanket draws from historical traditions of diverse cultures where quilts and patchworks were used for commemoration. For example, in Chile, women gathered to sew arpilleras, during that process, they alleviated personal pain by sharing their burdens, supporting one another, and healing traumas.
Maayan (the artist of The Bed), Nirit (designer and educator) and Bat-Hen (educational psychologist) will co-lead the workshop. Find out more about them below.
Maayan Sophia Weisstub
Maayan Sophia Weisstub is an interdisciplinary artist, graduate of the Royal College of Art. Weisstub was included in the 24th Gabrovo Biennial of Humor and Satire in Art. She has shown at the Saatchi Gallery (London), Christie's (London,) and Pavlov’s Dog Gallery (Berlin). Her work has also been featured in “WhiteHot” magazine, “Kaltbult” magazine,”Design Taxi” and many more.
Nirit Binyamini Ben-Meir
Nirit Binyamini Ben-Meir is an artist, designer and researcher. Her work explores the interconnection between society, economy, and ecology. Nirit uses participatory installations, videos, and workshops to provoke thoughts about the meaning of care. She researches the relationships between technology, humans, and natural ecosystems. Nirit will soon start her PhD research at the EPSRC funded Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence, based at the Queen Mary University of London, UK. She has an MA in Information Experience Design from the Royal College of Art where she now teaches, and a B.Des from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem.
Bat-Hen Shahar
Bat-Hen Shahar is an educational psychologist (PhD), researcher and the director of SAGOL- communicative parenting LTD. Bat-hen has considerable experience working with children, parents and educational teams. Her clinical experience includes play, group, and parenting therapy, and her research publications focus on emotion regulation and motivation. After almost a decade working with communities dealing with continuous traumatic stress, Bat-hen gained substantial theoretical and practical experience in ‘increasing emotional resilience’ based interventions.
Date
Wednesday 28 September 2022
Time
6pm - 8.30pm
Cost
Free, booking essential
Location
Learning Pavilion