Stitching Life: Exploring the Art of Embroidering Clothes and Repairing Hearts

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

Three journeys, on three continents, demonstrating the healing power and artistic promise of stitching and amending. In this conversation, Susanne Goetz, Barbara Mugnai and Yasmine Dabbous will share their stories, and discuss the role of process in transforming challenges into life-learning opportunities.

In Fall 2019, Susanne Goetz traveled to Europe and India to explore embroidery as both a traditional textile craft and contemporary artistic medium. The embroideries she worked on during her trip act as visual memories, not unlike a travel diary or photographs. During her trips, Susanne explored the communicative potentials of hand embroidery as well as the connections of the medium with female domesticity and craft activism.

In February 2020, the sudden outbreak of Covid 19 forced FIT in Milan students to return home to complete their thesis garments. Barbara Mugnai patiently and resiliently guided students as they worked during the lockdown with limited access and resources, using creativity to overcome challenges. The experience, which demonstrates the importance of the process in adapting to crisis, is documented in the film “Future of Fashion, Milan 2020.”

On August 4, 2020, the world’s strongest non-atomic explosion obliterated parts of Beirut, where Alumna Yasmine Dabbous resides. The art school that she founded, near the epicenter of the explosion, was itself quite hit. But once repaired, the studio welcomed hundreds of students who came to forget and stayed to create. During this experience, Dabbous got to guide and observe the process that helped Beirut’s residents overcome the trauma.

Presenters:
Susanne Goetz is Associate Professor | Textile Surface Design and Fabric Styling Department, and her focus is on both digital and traditional approaches to textile design and production, as well as global sustainable design, manufacturing and business practices. She has practiced embroidery for over 25 years, authored a popular hand embroidery elective at FIT, and conducted workshops on hand, machine, and smart embroidery. Susanne teaches an annual short term study abroad program on artisanship, sustainability and fair labor practices in India. Originally from Germany, she worked as a textile designer, lecturer, researcher and project manager in Germany, Thailand, and the UK before moving to New York.

Yasmine Dabbous is a visual culture artist and researcher from Beirut, Lebanon. Formerly an assistant professor of journalism and cultural studies, Dabbous left her university position to become the founder of Kinship Stories, a line of tribal art necklaces revolving around values, stories and craftsmanship. She is also the founder of Espace Fann, a Beirut-based creative space offering accessible university-level art education designed to heal and empower. Armed with a PhD in journalism and cultural history from Louisiana State University and a Textile/Surface Design degree from FIT, Dabbous fuses interdisciplinary methodologies and mediums to create works combining travel, storytelling, collage and fiber art.

Barbara Mugnai is Adjunct Professor since 2007 for FIT in MILAN, the Fashion Institute of Technology study abroad program at Politecnico di Milano, where she runs courses related to several areas of expertise: from draping to pattern-making, from tailoring techniques to active sportswear constructions. She is currently in charge of the project Research in Didactic Innovation within the Department of Excellence in Fashion Design for Politecnico di Milano with the aim of studying, developing and applying new method of teaching and to create new didactic tools to facilitate the learning process for bachelor’s degree Fashion courses.

Moderator:
Cultural Fellow Isha Kesarwani