Social [Distancing] Fabric
The Social [Distancing] Fabric
​This is a collaborative embroidery project, started in response to the COVID-19 lockdown of March 2020. Again, we looked at the situation, and turned a disadvantage into opportunity. With the rhythm of our days so monotonous, we wanted to offer a creative and collective experience, from home—at a distance. We sent each participant a needle and thread, along with a hand-made drawing on fabric by Adduchi. We asked people to complete the embroidery at home, and send it back to us. Then, upon receiving the finished embroidered works, we stitched them together, fashioning the separate pieces into a singular “Social Fabric.”
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The book Social [Distancing] Fabric
We asked makers to share with us their experiences during lockdown. People sent stories about sewing face masks for the homeless, about the first time they embroidered with their mother or grandmother. They confided stories about losing jobs and about illness. They wrote about their hopes and dreams for the future. In the book, we displayed both embroideries and stories. The first part contains the 200 embroideries, the second part the stories. Each piece of embroidery is numbered and corresponds to the maker’s story. Some embroideries were lost: we make their absence present through blank pages.
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Cups The Social [Distancing] Fabric
To commemorate the Social [Distancing] Fabric we asked Cups of Stories to make cups with stories by four (migrant) makers.
​We made four different cups with drawings by Adduchi and stories from Karim, Yusra, Martin and Bruna.
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A Project by The World Makers Foundation
​Community by Design is a project with the World Makers. The World Makers is a foundation I set up in 2019 together with Atusa Lalizadeh and fashion designer Karim Adduchi. The aim of the foundation was to support refugee and migrant artisans in their work, connect them with local designers and provide a platform for them.
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A lot of our work was informed by the principles of processwork. Instead of looking at migrants and refugees as people who need to be 'integrated', where some corners are sanded down and the lacking parts are enhanced, we see them as people with unique skills they have brought with them. Our job is to angle the project in such a way that it will fit the skills of the participants, to appreciate what they can do and instead of ignoring that, and only teaching them how things work in The Netherlands.
