For the yearly Brussels City of Stories festival (An initiative of Muntpunt and Passa Porta) I was honoured to do two projects this year. Both of them linked to the theme of this year “Brussels City of Traces”.
For the first project we toured around the city with a bic fabric map of Brussels. We went in conversation with different groups and individuals about their movement through the city. After sharing stories about streets, places and memories the participants punch-needled their favourite route in the map.
The result was a collective artwork called “Textile Traces” depicting how people in Brussels move around and what are good places to meet others or where to go when you feel more like some solitude.
The second project was with Bruselleer (an organisation providing courses for people with low literacy levels). One of the groups following Dutch language course had made small messages for the city that they wanted to share. They loved the punch-needling technique and asked if I could work with them to shape their messages. We thought about which shapes, patterns and colours suited their messages and they created beautiful artworks.
“I feel beautiful and cold in this city.
People are friendly “
Sonam from Tibet
“Every stone in the city tells a story about us.”
Hamida from Afghanistan
“Thank you for receiving people from other countries”
Mina from Morocco
“I would like to help everyone together. That’s my hobby “
Aman from Afghanistan
“Beginning and end”
Rateb from Gaza