Sarah May
Stories and Supper is a social enterprise that challenges the negative headlines about refugees. They bring people seeking asylum, refugees, and the local community together via creative storytelling workshops and suppers.
I designed and led a series of workshops based around visual storytelling using textiles.
The workshops considered relationships between beings and place, visualised personal identities and histories, and activated and amplified personal stories by using fashion as a tool to bring people together.
Hopeful banners were made, that then became wearable "ponchos" that then became a giant collective garment. This was part of an exhibition and also paraded at an event at Organic Lea, a growers cooperative in Chingford, East London.
The first two sessions responded to the Althea McNish show at William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow. We made sun prints in the gardens and talked about textile design and motifs from different countries.
The next sessions were designed to activate personal stories and memories of place and home, in it's many forms. We discussed favourite items of clothing and what they meant to us.
These sessions enabled some hopeful manifesto's to be composed and colour and pattern were utilised to create the textile banners.
Translating these into an item of clothing- the poncho- enabled the stories to be activated- we twirled and danced in them! Everyone enjoyed wearing the ponchos.
The collective garment brought everyone together as a performance piece.
Portrait photography by Laura Martinez
Video above and portrait photography above by Laura Martinez
Documentary photos by Laura Martinez