The Urban Fabric project was showcased at Cafe Clock this weekend. Brainchild of artist Liz Kueneke and presented by Culture Vultures, the large piece of cloth depicts the streets of the western side of the medina.
Liz spent around 500 hours embroidering the streets of the medina onto the cloth for this contemporary community art project. Then she took to the streets around Batha and Bab Boujloud and asked local people how they felt about their city. Where do they live? Where do they work? Which places have special significance for them? Which are dangerous, or happy, or spiritually important? People were then asked to embroider special symbols that signified their answers.
The idea is to provoke dialogue among people, to get them thinking about their city. One person's significant place will be another's dangerous one. It was particularly popular with teenage boys and men, who were keen to mark their house or school or special places on the map.
In fact, this is what Liz has found in other cities: boys and men were keen to be involved in Bangalore in India, but in Barcelona, men don't do the sewing! She has also carried out this project in New York and Quito.
Once the project is complete, Liz plans to return to each city with the finished map and the videos she has taken of people interacting and sewing. She hopes to exhibit the map in each place.
You can follow The Urban Fabric on Facebook.
Photos courtesy The Urban Fabric.
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presented by Culture Vultures. x
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