Can clothes tell a story? How could we create other stories with them? Join textile artist Cassandra Mayela for this family-friendly weaving workshop, in which she invites participants to reflect on the stories that can be told through the clothes they wear. Learn how everyday materials like clothing are connected to wider histories of global movement. Participants are asked to bring a piece of clothing they no longer wear, but that they for some reason have kept. These garments will be disassembled and woven into tapestries that will be brought together in the final session to form a collective work, revealing the connectedness of all our stories.

This workshop builds on themes of migration and displacement present in Carla Zaccagnini’s Cuentos de Cuentas/Accounts of Accounting, and how you can explore connections between intimate, family stories and larger sociopolitical histories through childhood memories or anecdotes. We recommend touring the exhibition as part of your visit to Amant. We also offer exhibition guides for younger audiences at our Visitor Experience desks or via QR codes throughout the gallery spaces.

Cassandra Mayela is a self-taught textile artist who has lived in New York since 2014 when she had to leave her home country, Venezuela. Her personal experiences as an immigrant and a woman of color have shaped her work. She is curious about the storytelling capacities of our clothing and she is particularly interested in how migration affects one’s identity and ideas of belonging. Through research, conversations, audience participation, and engaging with textiles and collected or found materials, she creates community-oriented works that show how fundamental changes in fabric can affect one’s perception of identity and sense of empowerment. Mayela’s ongoing work Maps of Displacement (2020-present) weaves together the clothing of displaced Venezuelan migrants into a series of textile sculptures charting their relocation across the USA.

Common Threads is an in-person event, and it is free and open to participants aged 10+. No experience with weaving is required. Register via the link below.

Image: Cassandra Mayela, Project 09