OPEN CALL FORGETME(K)NOT

International Contemporary Art Exhibition
Deadline 30th September 2023
Exhibition date: Novembre 2023
Venue: MUSEO DEL RICAMO E DEL TESSILE DI VALTOPINA (PG)

SCD Textile & Art Studio is a non-profit cultural association based in Perugia, active in the field of contemporary fiber art that promotes international art projects, particularly in the Umbrian territory, with the aim of bringing a wide and heterogeneous audience closer to the languages related to the textile medium in the context of contemporary visual arts, also investigating urgent issues of our time with a view to opening up new reflections and a pluralistic discussion on the themes that society is called upon to face.

FORGETME(K)NOT responds to this need, a collective exhibition scheduled for November that will be included in a calendar of art events dedicated to the denied rights of women – first and foremost the right to respect and life too often denied by violent men – that SCD Textile & Art Studio intends to promote throughout the month, extending not only the ‘duration’ of the single day dedicated to the fight against violence against women, but also the theme to include the plurality of oppressions inflicted on women of any ethnicity and in any country in the world.

SFORGETME(K)NOT: A KNOT ON THE HANDKERCHIEF TO REMEMBER (DENIED) WOMEN’S RIGHTS

The handkerchief is a domestic and common object that holds a layering of meanings. If today we associate the term with a disposable item that – moreover – is banal and environmentally unfriendly, for a long time it was an accessory that was treated with care and attention in its realization and to which a plurality of messages were entrusted depending on its use. From the simplest fabrics to the most refined ones, often embellished with figures and monograms, handkerchiefs have a long history intertwined with female hands – that transformed them into small embroidery masterpieces – and with the hearts of women – pledges of love or vehicles of seduction in times when gestures and objects were dense with meanings. On the other hand, as the last refuge of our tears, they also become the symbol of our fragility, of the pain that – like all other human emotions – inhabits our existence. Waved on the docks of ships that sailed the oceans towards another world, it was the last testimony of love that travelers and emigrants saw as they moved further and further away from the mainland, the last memory they carried with them leaving a railway track often with uncertain destinations.

To this plurality of meanings that oscillate between opposite events, the dimension of memory must be added. The knot on the handkerchief is in fact the symbol par excellence of the need to remember, a warning not to forget something important.

And so, the sense of this exhibition is entrusted to this small square of fabric that asks visitors to keep their attention alive and vigilant. Each participating artist will work on a handkerchief – preferably one that already has its own story preserved among the fibers – fixing the memory of a discrimination, a violence, of every single right denied to a woman or a group of women, in any country in the world, entrusting art with the burden of rescuing it from oblivion. Each artwork/handkerchief must be authenticated by the artist and knotted (or knotable) in one of the corners.

You can download the rules HERE , or from the website www.scdtextileandartstudio.wordpress.com or upon request at scdtextileandartstudio@gmail.com