Globally Connected @ FIT: Stitching Life: Exploring the Art of Embroidering Clothes and Repairing Hearts

Three journeys, on three continents, demonstrating the healing power and artistic promise of stitching and amending. In this conversation, Susanne Goetz, Barbara Mugnai and Yasmine Dabbous will share their stories, and discuss the role of process in transforming challenges into life-learning opportunities.

In fall 2019, Susanne Goetz traveled to Europe and India to explore embroidery as both a traditional textile craft and contemporary artistic medium. The embroideries she worked on during her trip act as visual memories, not unlike a travel diary or photographs. During her trips, Susanne explored the communicative potentials of hand embroidery as well as the connections of the medium with female domesticity and craft activism.

In February 2020, the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 forced FIT in Milan students to return home to complete their thesis garments. Barbara Mugnai patiently and resiliently guided students as they worked during the lockdown with limited access and resources, using creativity to overcome challenges. The experience, which demonstrates the importance of the process in adapting to crisis, is documented in the film Future of Fashion, Milan 2020.

On August 4, 2020, the world’s strongest non-atomic explosion obliterated parts of Beirut, where alumna Yasmine Dabbous resides. The art school that she founded, near the epicenter of the explosion, was itself quite hit. But once repaired, the studio welcomed hundreds of students who came to forget and stayed to create. During this experience, Dabbous was presented with the opportunity to guide and observe the process that helped Beirut’s residents overcome the trauma.