Join us for 'hold dear: a pocket making workshop', inspired by one of the subjects of Hannah Machover's exhibition 'as far as possible', a show that responds to the Holocaust Centre North's archive, installed at Torriano Meeting House 16-27th January.
Daisy Harvey will be guiding participants to make pockets to keep something/s safe, perhaps hidden. Bring along something you'd like to stash away, along with an overcoat or other garment you would like to add that object and its pocket to.
Two of the etchings on display acted as a prompt for the workshop. They feature imagined shoe soles and refer to a quote detailing ways in which refugees fled Nazi Germany with objects hidden on their person: ‘Their property was seized and belongings confiscated by the Nazis. They could leave with little more than the clothes on their backs. My aunties smuggled their jewellery in their underwear, nailed into the soles of their shoes, sewn into the lining of their coats and of course they always had some knitting to keep their hands busy.’**
The image of something sewn into the lining of a coat is an evocative one - resourceful, creative, made of necessity, a tactile act of defiance. Inspired by this and as a way of meditating on what it means to flee one’s home, participants will be creating pockets to house that which they hold dear.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hold-dear-a-pocket-making-workshop-tickets-1979677494678
Daisy Harvey is a London-based artist. She explores ideas of sentimentality, symbolism, and collective storytelling through object making and mending. She has been teaching mending workshops for over five years as part of the ongoing textile mending project ‘Going’ with her long term collaborator, the textile artist Mazlyn Ortiz.
Workshop details:
£20-£28 according to income. Materials and refreshments included with the ticket.
2pm-4pm - practical part of workshop
4pm-4.30pm - show and tell
**Carry Gorney, Send me a parcel with a hundred lovely things (London: Ragged Clown Publishing, 2014), p.143.
