a workshop part of The Drawing Exchange Festival / Stokes Croft / April 28th - May 04 2009
DAYS / EMBROIDERIES / EMBROIDED GRAFFITI
learn why embroidery is the best way to document reality
capture the changes in your neighbourhood on a piece of cloth
a group of people embroidering in public space as a means of generating
conversation and documenting urban processes.
we will learn embroidery techniques and crochet. we will use found materials.
we will use each others clothes. by the end of the workshop our garments will be
marked by the social reality around us, the conflicts generated by urban
transformation, the people and the stories we meet.
check out our previous textile intervention, in Cairo, Egypt: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Weave & Construct
Aviv bio:
Aviv learned to crochet and knit in his mother's womb. it was a method for her
to while away the time during pregnancy.
now all grown up, aviv crochets, embroiders and sews as part of global movements
for social change. his efforts to ward of gentrification, stop global warming and
end the violence in Israel/Palestine have so far been unsuccessfull.
Vahida bio:
Vahida was born in a country that no longer exists, in a mixed orthodox/muslim marriage
raised in communist manner. Autistic as young child, she spent days drawing with head to
the floor. Thats how she became blind on the left eye. At the age of 5 she received the
first revelation of cosmic powers. Most of the time she spent in the garret of her grand
parents fabricating dolls, their clothes and house. With other kids from the neighborhood
she built houses in trees, set up a base camp in the woods and made things out of mud and
snow from the garden.
Nowdays she is researching transformation processes occurring in environment and society
through physical and psychical recycling, building strategies for individuals to take
control over their transformation. Methods she is applying are based on creating conditions
for good things to happen, learning from her own experience, be guided by intuition.
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