WeMend

Stitching Connections

Overview

WeMend is a participatory workshop and social space inviting visitors and community groups to join in the ongoing activity to sew/embroider/patch/upcycle pieces of fabric together. First introduced for the exhibition Womanifesto: Flowing Connections at Bangkok Art & Culture Center, WeMend workshops have since been set up in various locations around the world by Womanifesto artists.

The clothes coming together in diverse sites, each with unique cultural imprints, are merged as one continuous piece and installed as a shelter-like structure at exhibitions where visitors are invited to continue attaching patches and make the fabric grow.

Engaging in this meditative hands-on activity with sewing at its core is to nurture linkages with each other and in turn with all that surrounds us. In our fragmented times WeMend explores the possibilities of convergence, offering time and space to slow down – to commune, converse, and connect – individually and collectively contemplate on both material and non-materials matters in our lives.

WeMend at Sharjah Biennial 16

Please come and join us for WeMend at Ceramic House during the Sharjah Biennial 16, from February 6 to June 15, 2025.

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WeMend Sites 2023-2025

THAILAND

WOMANIFESTO: Flowing Connections, Bangkok Art and Culture Center (BACC)
WOMANIFESTO: Flowing Connections, Bangkok Art and Culture Center (BACC)

WeMend was conceptualised for and launched at the above exhibition where the project was set up as an ongoing workshop in a designated space for the 3-month exhibition period by artists/organisers, Jamilah Preenun Nana, Nitaya Ueareeworakul and Varsha Nair.

Sunset.on.thebridge, Udon Thani

A community craft market at Nong Pra Jak public park, Udon Thani main town. WeMend: Stitching Connections led by Nitaya Ueareeworakul.

Sunset.on.thebridge, Udon Thani

A community craft market at Nong Pra Jak public park, Udon Thani main town. WeMend: Stitching Connections led by Nitaya Ueareeworakul.

SEA Junction (South East Asia Junction), Bangkok

SEA Junction founded by Dr Rosalia Sciortino fosters understanding of Southeast Asia in all socio-cultural dimensions – from arts and crafts to the economy and development – by enhancing public access to knowledge resources and promoting exchanges among students, artists, specialists and Southeast Asia lovers. WeMend: Stitching Connections led by Jamilah Preenun Nana.

Visit SEA Junction
AWID Forum 2024: Queen Sirikit Convention Center, Bangkok

WeMend offers a social-workshop space inviting participants coming from diverse locations to Bangkok for this global community 4-day event. Led by Jamilah Preenun Nana.

Japan

Tei Kobayashi’s Home, Nogura Village, Nagano

“For this WeMend project women from nearby villages gathered on the wooden veranda of my  farmhouse in the mountain village  of “Nogura”. The goddess mountain (Megamiyama) majestically sits before us…I face her each morning.

Painters, kimono reform artists, poets, weavers, pianists… we shared  some days together dreaming, chatting, creating something with all the pieces of ancient ancestral kimonos, once so cherished now cast aside and forgotten.

“Boro”(rags) mended into left over pieces of the finest woven silk kimonos… all the joys and sorrows of so many mothers and grandmothers speaking through threads of time.”

Led by Tei Kobayashi.

India

Gazra Café, Shree Maharani Chimnabai Stree Udyogalaya, Baroda Komal Mistry’s home, Baroda
Gazra Café, Shree Maharani Chimnabai Stree Udyogalaya, Baroda Komal Mistry’s home, Baroda
Gazra Café, Shree Maharani Chimnabai Stree Udyogalaya, Baroda Komal Mistry’s home, Baroda

Founded in 1914 by the Royal family of Gaekwad, Maharani Chimnabai Stree Udyogalaya (MCSU) is a self-governing women’s charitable and vocational training organisation.

Gazra Café at MCSU opened in 2023 as part of an initiative to uplift the LGBTQ+ community in Baroda. Participants in WeMend included staff and visitors to Gazra Café, and individuals from the women artists group – Remembering Nasreen: Gargi Raina, Komal Mistry, Shrimanti Saha and Rashmimala.

Led by Varsha Nair at Gazra Café and Komal Mistry in her home.

Australia

WeMend was set up in Sue Pedley’s studio. Led by Sydney Lasuemo group: Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Virginia Hilyard, Sue Pedley, Helen Grace.
Photo by Phaptawan Suwannakudt
UP Studio, Sydney

WeMend was set up in Sue Pedley’s studio. Led by Sydney Lasuemo group: Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Virginia Hilyard, Sue Pedley, Helen Grace.

WeMend was set up in Sue Pedley’s studio. Led by Sydney Lasuemo group: Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Virginia Hilyard, Sue Pedley, Helen Grace.
Photo by Virginia Hilyard

United States

Level Up Cowork and Creation Cente
Level Up Cowork and Creation Center, Union Ave Pueblo, CO, USA. Photo by Helen Eberhardie Dunn.
Level Up Cowork and Creation Cente
Level Up Cowork and Creation Center, Union Ave Pueblo, CO, USA. Photo by Helen Eberhardie Dunn.
Level Up Cowork and Creation Center, Pueblo, Colorado, USA

WeMend involved the collaboration of local residents including indigenous community members. Led by Helen Eberhardie Dunn.

Level Up Cowork and Creation Center
Level Up Cowork and Creation Cente
Level Up Cowork and Creation Center, Union Ave Pueblo, CO, USA. Photo by Helen Eberhardie Dunn.

Germany

Community Garden in Herzfelde

WeMend was held in a small village northeast of Berlin, gathering the local community and visiting artist friends, organized together with the local parish and village club. Led by Karla Sachse.

Scotland

The Ignorant Art School Sit-in #4 | Outside the Circle, Cooper Gallery, University of Dundee, Dundee

WeMend was a participatory installation presented as part of the exhibition and event programme: The Ignorant Art School Sit-in #4 Outside the Circle.

Curated by Sophia Yadong Hao; Spatial Design and Install by Rhona Jack; Curatorial Assistant – Peter Amoore. 

A special event, A Stitching Perspectives Class: WeMend was also delivered as part of the programme. Participants include Cooper Gallery visitors and DJCAD Textile Design (Claire Adholla, Martha Glazzard, Frances Stevenson, Joanna Walke and students).

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Pakistan

Lahore Biennale 03, YMCA Lahore, Lahore
Lahore Biennale 03, YMCA Lahore, Lahore

The iteration of WeMend for Lahore, curated by John Tain, has been developed by faculty and students from the Textile, Fabric, and Accessories Design department at BNU-SVAD at the invitation of the Lahore Biennale Foundation, working with artisans from Kaarvan Crafts Foundation and Baazyaft. Developed under the lead of Kiran Khan and co-lead Anam Khurram, with Risham Syed and Rohma Khan as advisors.  

Switzerland

Photo by Salma Al Khadra, Luzern
Photo by Salma Al Khadra, Luzern
Hochschule Luzern Masters Final Festival, Luzern, Südpol, Switzerland
 

Language and its use are politically and socially tense. Trying to achieve agreement in language through over-regulation often leads to conformity or silence instead of free, peaceful exchange.

 

This project is an attempt to break the ice and bring an open dialogue through the process of sewing together. Production and handling of textiles provide a basis for critical discussion.

 

The collective stitching of fabrics from the Glarus Economic Archive creates a space to reappraise historical events through textiles and establish direct connections between the textile industry in Glarus and the origin of WeMend.

Glarus fabric from the archive 'Glarus Wirtschaftsarchiv'
Glarus fabric from the archive 'Glarus Wirtschaftsarchiv'. Changing Perspectives led by Salma Al-Khadra.
Legler Areal, Glarus Süd, Switzerland

Some fabrics in Glarus, dating back to 1830, are sourced from the Glarus Wirtschaftsarchiv. These fabrics were generously provided for WeMend by Dr. Helen Oblaka, an art historian and researcher. The project WeMend: Changing Perspectives, led by Salma Al-Khadra, is showcased in Textile Cultural Practices at the former textile mill, Legeler Areal, in Diesbach, Glarus.

United Arab Emirates

Al-Madam Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE

Led by a local women’s group at the art centre.

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