15 FEB | Online Workshop: Children Embroidering Peace
In the context of the research project “(Un-)Stithcing the Subjects of Colombia’s Reconciliation Process”, CEI researcher Raquel da Silva will lead an online workshop for children on the topic of peace.
About the workshop
On 15 February at 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM WET, CEI-Iscte researcher Raquel da Silva will be joined by Giuditta Fontana (University of Birmingham, UK) to run a workshop for children aged 4-8 and their grown-ups about the textile books Small Stitches and Peace Embroidered by Children. Researchers from “(Un-) Stitching Gazes | (Des) Tejiendo Miradas” will introduce the project and explain why children were invited to embroider their conceptions of peace, showing some of the Colombian children’s artwork to the families.Then, Raquel and Giuditta will invite each family to join them in creating a representation of what peace means for them. Participants will creatively reflect on what peace means for them and produce textile and paper collages to express their ideas. Participants will compare their reflections with the ideas about peace embroidered by children in Colombia. The workshop is part of the project and exhibition “(Un-) Stitching Gazes | (Des) Tejiendo Miradas”.
About the project
By means of needles and threads, the project “(Un-) Stitching Gazes | (Des) Tejiendo Miradas” explores biographical stories of Colombians who were members of the guerrilla group FARC-EP, and who now find themselves in the process of reincorporation into civilian society. The project also includes the perspectives of their family members and new neighbours. Their stitches narrate a Colombia that is little known at the centre and in the cities of the country. It is also a project about peace, not as an elusive state in the distant future that we never seem to reach, but peace as a process set in the everyday, in the interactions between people who, in the midst of war, were set against each other by the violence. And it is a project composed of textile books, made at the hands of people and communities who actively live the fragile peace process.
From 15 January to 1 March 2021, the website Stitched Voices hosts the virtual textile exhibition “(Un-) Stitching Gazes | (Des) Tejiendo Miradas”, which showcases different textile books. Every 5 days a new book with a corresponding Conflict Textile piece will be unveiled and it will be accompanied by online and offline activities, i.e. an event reflecting on the book added to the exhibition. Our workshop is one of these activities.
For questions about the workshop, please contact: raquel.beleza.silva@iscte-iul.pt or g.fontana@bham.ac.uk
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
