25 Million Stitches Sewing Circle
August 17, 2019
2 PM - 5 PM
Join Verge and regional artist Jennifer Kim Sohn on Saturday, August 17th to participate in the first 25 Million Stitches Sewing Circle to raise awareness about the international refugee crisis. Attendees are invited to contribute a panel to Sohn’s ongoing 25 Million Stitches public engagement project which will be exhibited at Verge in 2020. Participating in the project and the sewing circle are free, however, donations are encouraged and will be directed to International Rescue Committee. Mark your calendar and make yourself an important part of this global social practice project.
More about the 25 Million Stitches Project
25 MILLION STITCHES – ONE STITCH FOR EACH OF THE 25 MILLION REFUGEES
The world is in flight. 25 million people across the globe have been forced to flee their homelands as a consequence of genocide, war, poverty, drought, targeted violence, and other grave threats. They leave behind everything they’ve known, possessed, and been a part of in order to live; they face immense struggles, misfortunes, and perils on their journey; and, through it all, survival, much less successful resettlement, remains but the slimmest hope.
How does making 25 million stitches help refugees? We believe that stitching for this project is a way for us to engage with this global crisis instead of ignoring it. We engage and we reflect more deeply than news soundbites can allow us. The two objectives of the project are:
-
To engage as many people as possible to raise awareness of the global refugee crisis and
-
To amass 25 million stitches to visually represent the sheer volume of this astronomical figure of refugees.
This is a community art installation. We are asking volunteers to hand stitch on fabric panels. When the panels are returned to us stitched fully or partially, we will assemble them into an installation along with the names of all of the participants.