Memories of Migration: Common Thread

Summer 2018-present

Over twelve public workshops at the Queens Library in Flushing, community members were invited to make a quilt that shares memories of migration through the preservation and innovation of textile practices. Local instructors led the workshops to create component quilt block designs that reflected their unique skill sets, cultures, and personal histories. All were invited to bring fabrics from home, contribute their own creative styles, and share stories of craft, family and migration.

Some of these stories were recorded and incorporated into the quilt through sew-able electronics and added to Queens Memory’s digital archives. All the quilt blocks were combined along with recordings to make one quilt which was then quilted communally around a large wooden frame. The finished quilt was exhibited in the Flushing Library and the American Folk Art Museum Self-Taught Genius Gallery for a panel discussion moderated by Alisa Wilson from the Tenement Museum. The project is meant to integrate the old and the new and showcase the diversity of Flushing and Queens. This was the second quilting oral history program by Queens Memory within the Memories of Migration series funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

See the Queens Memory website.