Textile Touches of Escape and Migration

Garments that tell stories of escape and arrival, directly on the skin. Works of art capable of conveying experiences and emotions.

“Textile Touches of Escape and Migration” lets us feel the way others feel about escape, migration and integration. The experiences of other people challenge us to show ourselves.

At the heart of this interactive traveling exhibit is garment artwork, created to help us — first physically, then intellectually — gain access to others’ experiences and emotions. Experiences and emotions that build bonds between artists and lay viewers, between refugees and people touched by their plight, between escape, migration and integration.

Escape and arrival

Escape here means leaving a home to elude threats or bondage. This alone is an existential and emotional crisis. Yet fleeing a place also inherently means arriving somewhere else. This too is a situation that carries a heavy emotional burden. Nor should it be forgotten that the arrival of refugees can also change the lives of the folk receiving them. To a lesser degree, no doubt. Even so, changes — whether big or small — demand emotional processing. Escape, migration and integration are thus topics that touch almost everyone. Topics that we can’t allow to go unspoken between us. All the more so in a multicultural landscape of natural catastrophes, wars and economic crises that can unexpectedly force anyone to abandon their own homes.

Feelings in the clothing of others

Sharing experiences and emotions is a prerequisite for empathetic coexistence, yet expressing them and making them available for others is often a challenge. “Textile Touches of Escape and Migration” aims at precisely this type of mutual understanding, conveyed here through physical action — the donning of a garment of clothing. Starting from the fundamental idea that we perceive more subtle information via our bodies than through words, the garments in this exhibit are transformed into artwork, and beyond that into unifying language. They help us approach one another, help us feel what others feel directly on our skin. They become the link between different people — or even cultures.

When we pull on a garment, our skin feels across a broad surface whatever it is touching. Does it feel pleasant? What is its texture? Is it scratchy? Yet looking beyond from the tactile sensory impressions, we also develop other feelings and associations in relation to a garment of clothing. Does the garment look good on me and fit my style? On what occasions would I wear it, and what do I project in it? What does it say about me and my life situation? Is it practical in daily life? Does it remind me of somebody or of a specific moment?

“Textile Touches of Escape and Migration” hopes to gather as broad a spectrum as possible of experiences, emotions and intentions in the form of garment artworks, linking very different people together with escape and migration. Individual works can be inspired by specific situations. They can convey a feeling to outsiders in an artistic way, or replicate a mood; they can import or leave behind country-specific traditions, or combine old and new. At the same time, clothing artwork can express trauma and desires, even hope — and make those available to others. Outsiders are then afforded space within this traveling exhibition to slip into these experiences and emotions, and thus to become an active participant.

Participation in feelings and discussion

Picking up on attitudes of other people requires two things: social skills and a willingness to apply them. Being empathetic is thus (among other things) a conscious decision. “Textile Touches of Escape and Migration” uses physical experience to create a framework in which we can more easily develop empathy than through situations in which purely cognitive approaches are used.

At the same time, it also encourages discussion about those emotions, attitudes and experiences. This project is thus built atop two key pillars: physical contact with garment artwork on the one hand, and discussion on the other. One essential aspect of the overall program are talks by the artists and discussions in which the participating artists present their works and enter into dialog with visitors.

Exhibition and follow-on projects

The project runs indefinitely. At the moment we are concentrating
on workshops where interested people can design their own dress artworks.
can design their dress artworks.

As soon as we have enough dress artworks, we will start planning exhibitions and a suitable supporting programme.