The Discovery of a Secret Language

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Embroidery is not merely a handicraft exclusive to households, but an art medium which is often overlooked. Agnes Richter in the Victorian Era embroidered her struggles with repeated and elusive stitches on a jacket, indigenous women in Central America embroider patterns on their traditional garment “Huipil” to signify their cultural identity and history.
Embroidery is remarkable for its aesthetic and flexibility, and therefore its extensive usage. Throughout history, humans have been using embroidery as a channel to present their identities, or even transmit secret languages. How could we use such intimate language as embroidery, to record, share, and reshape our emotions?

In the workshop “The Discovery of A Secret Language”, Mexican artist Ane Alfeiran will invite the participants to resonate with the secret language of embroidery works in history, to allow the participants to explore embroidering lines, patterns, or even text, to create your own secret languages. In the full day workshop, the artist will tutor several basic embroidering techniques, participants will then embroider on a canvas, to hide their own resilient secret message in their creation. In the later session of the workshop the artist will guide the participants to collaborate and deliver their own secret messages, at the end to sublimate the art pieces through creation, erasure, and replication. The embroidery pieces from the participants will be eventually stitched into a giant collaborative work, and the aesthetics of embroidery will be presented.

The collaborative outcome of the workshop will be presented to the public in the HART Social Studio showcase at the end of the year.

Event rundown
Morning
Event briefing
Tutoring of basic embroidering techniques
Artist sharing – embroidery in history, cultures, and arts

Afternoon
Short meditation
Concept development for the artwork Creation of the embroidery piece Collaboration among participants Sharing session

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

Ane Alfeiran is a self-taught Mexican artist who, from a young age, found an escape in art and a forum in which to express her feelings, hopes and fears. As someone who continues to travel the globe, Ane draws on inspiration and technique from the different cities and cultures she has experienced. Ane takes us into the emotional world of each of her subjects, making each painting stand out with its own individual story. Through a deep personal connection present in her compositions, she aims to stimulate the viewer’s feelings and imagination and encourage them to create their own interpretation of what the art means to them.