Jan 26, 2020

Part of 25 Million Stitches

A couple of days ago, I visited the Verge Center for the Arts in Sacramento (https://www.vergeart.com/) and came across the “25 Million Stitches” project (25millionstitches.com). It was created by Jennifer Kim Sohn to bring attention to the scale of refugees worldwide.

The project does not take political sides; it tries to raise awareness of the scale of human suffering: 25 million people having to leave everything behind in order to live. Each stitch represents one person.

Here is my start on a panel of unbleached cotton that was available in the Verge Center for the Arts. I painted the background as guidance for my stitching.

The circles represent communities where people are living a “normal” life shown by the rhythm of running stitch and French knot. There is no indication where people are coming from and where they hope to go. Maybe these are people who do not yet know that they will be refugees tomorrow.

The irregular, dense stitching in the center of the panel shows the situation of the refugees. It almost seems hopeless to get through the perils of their journey but there is no choice left.

The first version of the panel contained 777 stitches.