We Are The Story Quilt Exhibition in Minneapolis

The Textile Center in Minneapolis is exhibiting the seven quilt exhibitions “We Are the Story” with the Women of Colors Quilters Network (WCQN) now until June 12, 2021. These exhibitions illustrate black history in the United States by representing thanks to quilts symbols of liberation, resistance and empowerment.

Since the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, Minneapolis has become an epicenter of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the Textile Center along with the WCQM decided to create this exhibit by making a call to American quiltmakers and artists. The response was remarkable — 423 quilts were sent. Carolyn Mazloomi, WCQM’s founder and member of the Textile Center council, selected 89 quilts to be displayed in two of the centerpiece exhibitions: “Gone but Never Forgotten” and “Racism: In the Face of Hate We Resist.”

A third exhibition, “We Who Believe in Freedom” will display quilts by members of the WCQM. The four other exhibitions will be solo works by four committed artists: “I Wish I Knew How it Feels to be Free” (Quilts by Dorothy Burge, Chicago, IL), “Sacred Invocations” (Quilts by Sylvia Hernandez, Brooklyn, NY), “The Protest Series” (Quilts by Penny Mateer, Pittsburgh, PA), and “Freedom Rising: I Am the Story” (Quilts by L’Merchie Frazier, Boston, MA). More information about these solo exhibitions can be found at textilecentermn.org/wearethestory.

This initiative is aiming to use patchwork as a way to express and share in order to tell the unsung stories and to educate the next generations. Thus, the covered themes will be: remembering those lost to police brutality, history of civil rights, and racism in America.

To learn more about the event, download the press release here.

You can also visit the Textile Center’s website as well as the Women of Colors Quilters Network’s website.

And as we can not travel there, we would like to share with you a few of the exhibited quilts: