Do you love to craft or sew?
Would you like to take part in a creative community project which aims to promote respect and understanding between different communities?
If your answers is Yes!, we’d love you to join us and be part of Echo Eternal Horizons Festival 2022.
Echo Eternal is a commemorative arts engagement programme inspired by the testimony of British survivors of the Holocaust and survivors of 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Last year FOLIO was partnered with Holocaust survivor Dr Agnes Kaposi and across 2021 we interviewed her, wrote poems inspired by her, created light in the darkness by projecting some of Agnes’s words and ours on the Town Hall, donated new books about the Holocaust to Sutton Coldfield library and shared monthly snippets about Agnes’ life.
In the run up to Holocaust Memorial Day this year we invite you to join us and create an individual patchwork square in response to the Agnes’s testimony, drawing on the Holocaust Memorial Day 2022 theme of “One Day”.
The patches, 15cmx15cm, can contain any images, words or thoughts you think appropriate in regards to your response to Agnes’s testimony. You can include found items, such as buttons, scraps of material or items found in nature. We encourage the patches to be made from recycled materials.
You can work at your own pace at home creating a square, or you can join us at one of our sew-a-longs. You can use your own materials, or we can provide you with materials, thanks to our wonderful partners on this project, the Up Creative Community.
To take part:-
(1) Listen, watch or read some of Agnes’s testimony. If you register for one of our sew-ins, or email us, we’ll send you a private link to view Agnes’s video testimony, but you could also watch or read one of the following and use that as your inspiration.
Click here to watch our interview with Agnes
Click here to read Agnes’s monthly snippets on FOLIO’s website
Click here to borrow Agnes’s autobiography from the Birmingham library service
Click here to buy Agnes’s autobiography
(2) Explore a little the Holocaust Memorial Day 2022 theme of One Day
(3) Cut a square of material 15cm x 15cm and decorate / embellish / embroider it with your response to what Agnes’s testimony.
If you would like us to provide you with a pack of materials to create your patch, including a 15 cm x 15cm square of fabric, please email zoe@foliostutoncoldfield.org.uk and we’ll get one out to you.
If you prefer to sew at your own pace and time, great! But if you’d like to sew in the (virtual) company of others, please join us at one or more of the following sew-a-longs
Friday 7 January 10am-midday.
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEuf-Cqpz0jGdCqKn0sIwyJkILKLycoVP31
Friday 7 January 8-10pm.
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMsdu-oqjwvEtCNfzwTP8NB0Ukujdzjw8YS
Friday 14 January 10am-midday.
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZElfu6orj4sEteyhuhO5T0oUVyu95mWUiIM
Friday 14 January 8-10pm.
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEvdu2hpzgiGdDtFilmFYz49QzsfSQZRXXt
These sew-a-longs will take place via Zoom. You’re welcome to stay for as long or as short as you like at each session, with a cup of tea or a glass of wine and some good company. Creative help and inspiration will be offered by members of the Up Creative Community at each sew-a-long for those who would like it, but otherwise we can just use the time to be crafty and reflective together. You can pop in to one of the sew-ins or join us for all four – whatever works for you 🙂
All ages and abilities are extremely welcome to participate in this activity. You don’t have to be skilled with a needle and thread to help us with our patchwork – we just ask that you take the opportunity to learn a little about Agnes’s testimony and be eager to try making a creative response.
(4) Drop off your finished patch by Thursday 20 January at one of the following locations:
Sutton Coldfield Library in the Red Rose Centre
Sutton Coldfield Town Hall at King Edward’s Square
Please include your name and a way to contact you (so we can thank you 🙂 ).
If you need to post your patch, please contact Zoe for an address to send it to.
(5) Your patch will be sewn together with all the patches created by our community to create a community quilt in response to Agnes’ testimony. This quilt will go on display in Sutton Coldfield Library from Holocaust Memorial Day, 27 January 2022. It will be on display for one month before being sent to Echo Eternal to form part of a bigger response from groups and schools across the UK.
Any questions? Please don’t hesitate to get in touch – just drop Zoe an email on zoe@foliosuttoncoldfield.org.uk
Some things to think about
Please don’t sew/embellish up to the edge of your 15x15cm square; leave at least 0.5cm all around the edge so we can sew the patches together without losing any of your creative response.
Be inspired by these similar projects:
https://www.itv.com/news/london/update/2015-12-08/holocaust-survivors-patchwork-of-memories/
https://www.internationalquiltmuseum.org/about/quilt-month/holocaust-quilt
https://www.holocaustcenter.org/exhibitions/exhibits/kindertransport-memory-quilt-exhibit/
https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/quilt-of-memories-tells-remarkable-story-of-holocaust-survivors-3494608
When reading/listening to Agnes’s experience, how did you feel? Why do you think you felt like that? What part of Agnes’s experience affected you the most? Was there anything that surprised you about her experiences? You could use your answers to these questions to inform what you sew or add to your patch.
Birmingham Libraries have a wide range of material available to borrow if you’d like to do more reading about the Holocaust. The following books have been recommended to us by either the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, Echo Eternal or Holocaust survivor Agnes Kaposi and all are available to borrow through Birmingham Libraries (click to be taken to the library catalogue entry, from where you can reserve the book to be delivered to whichever library you like):
Yellow star – Red star by Agnes Kaposi with contributions from historian László Csősz
The English German Girl by Jake Wallis Simons (Click here for the audio book version)
The politics of genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary by Randolph L. Braham
The Holocaust in Hungary: Evolution of a genocide by Zoltán Vági
Losing the dead by Lisa Appignanesi
If you would like to reserve library books that have been recommended for children you could try these:
The little boy star: An allegory of the Holocaust by Rachel Hausfater
After the War by Tom Palmer
The missing: The true story of my family in World War II by Michael Rosen
When the World was Ours by Liz Kessler
Hitler’s Canary by Sandi Toksvig