Update on the 70,273 project

For several years I was involved in collecting, sorting, assembling, quilting for the 70,273 project (a post on my German blog can be found here), 

The aim of the project is to commemorate every singe victim of the T4 Nazi-extinction programm of handicapped people which lasted from  1940 to 1942 and officially counted 70,273 victims. (The program was officially stopped after a degree of resistance of citizens but continued undercover, the final count of victims is not known.) Jeanne Hewell-Chambers initiated The 70,273 project after watching a documentary on World War II on TV in 2016, when she realized that her beloved sister-in-law who had suffered a terrible accident at age 3 which left her handicapped most likely would have been a victim, and brought to death, too.

Our activities went publich with an exhibition of the German contributions at the Patchworktage of the Patchwork Gilde Deutschland in Celle in 2018, and in Munich. And an event in Dachau about the seven quilts made by arttextil Dachau as well, as written about on my German blog. 

Jeanne Hewell-Chambers, her husband "The Engineer", 
and I one evening in Celle.

 

A view into the exhibition in Celle

Then Covid hit, everything stalled, I sent my materials and data sheets and quilts to the US, asking once in a while how far the project had progressed toward the ultimate goal of a joint exhibition of all the finished quilts. Things were taking time, a LOT of work needed to be done!

Earlier this year I was approached by the board of arttextil Dachau whether I would like to give a presentation about the project for their anniversary celebrations. I contacted Peggy and Jeanne about newest developments, and it turned out that Peggy was taking over being the chair of the board from Jeanne due to a number of reasons. As an introduction to her new role it happened that Peggy and her husband decided to come for the event in Dachau, bring the quilts, Peggy would deliver the presentation and I would be translating. All of this took place this past Friday. 

Peggy and her husband had done a few days of traveling prior to coming to Dachau, and they were met and hosted by members of Arttextil e.V. . I joined them for a (very cold!) tour of the inner city of Dachau on Friday morning, followed by a Bavarian-style lunch in a typical restaurant, and then we proceede to the lecture hall where we had to hang the quilts.

 Peggy had brought ten quilts with her, all seven that had been made by members of Arttextil to commemorate the 207 inmates of Franziskuswerk Schönbrunn who fell victim to T4, and three others. 

 

One of the three additional quilts was Quilt #521, assembled from blocks that had been contributed by quilters from Israel. (This quilt is one who always moves me to the bone, even though the T4 program is not equivalent to the extinction of Jews. I am very grateful to the members of the Israeli guild that they participated in the project, and that they did this through connections to the German guild.)

Quilt #521

 We were also joined by Renate Pognée, a member of the German Patchwork Gilde and a longarm quilter. She had quilted several of the quilts for the Dachau group and was very moved to re-encounter them on this occasion.

The ultimate aim of presenting all the by now more than 620 quilts in a huge exhibition is still on the agenda - that will be the TGGG, The Great Global Gathering. The website is being revamped, a new facebook and instagram appearance is in the making and things are moving forward again after Covid had been a bit of a grand slow-down.
 

It would be wonderful to be able to travel for that occasion - I hope political circumstances will make it possible when the time comes.

CQC Int. Inc. (or, Clandestine Quilt Carriers on the Move)

Is it because I have been more obsessed with the price of shipping quilts in recent years, or what has changed that I get the feeling I have become a member of a ‘clandestine quilt carriers network’?

One thing is bringing EQA-challenge quilts to Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, to exhibit, or back after they have completed their tour. This has been a common event for all the years that I have been the international representative for the German Patchwork Guild. Another thing is taking a number of quilts from a number of different quilters and all supposed to be going into different exhibitions or locations after having been handed on to somebody else. (Not to mention finally getting back my quilt from the SAQA-tour which customs wouldn’t give me back, which I have written about before.)

In Ste. Marie-aux-Mines I picked up my quilt from the Wide Horizons which finished earlier this year.

 

A Scrap a Day

And received back one quilt from a 20 Perspectives tour after it had been traveling for a year. 

 

Bridging the Cultural Gap (2022) -
note that this one contains pieces from the same vintage kimono
I am using for the piece I am currently working on, see last post.

I also collected quilts from several other 20 Perspectives members to be shown in Brno in April. 

Collecting quilts from 20 Perspectives for Brno in April

But before the event I had also been contacted by Annie Labruyère about five Germany-related quilts from the 70,237-project which were still in her possession from just before the pandemic, would I take them back because she just couldn't store them anymore at her house. Of course I said yes, and I picked them up from the stand of France Patchwork after Annie had to go home earlier than expected.

The bag with 5 quilts in it

 

Quilt no. 521, combining patches from Israel and Germany,
for the 70,237 project

 

Now I am taking these quilts on to Houston, and either I will give them to somebody who will take them to Tennesse to then be picked up to go on to Atlanta.

In Houston, also, I will take over several quilts, again from members of 20 Perspectives, to come to Germany with my and then be shown in Brno. As far as I know right now, I am not taking a quilt of mine to give to anybody there because that will go to France to be taken to Australia… if I remember correctly.

Do you understand why I sometimes don't know where my quilts are?

At Biennale Internationale d'Art Textile 2018

Spending a week away from home again. I have an exhibition at the Biennale International d’Art Textile in Villefranche-sur-Saone, where I had already been once two years ago with an exhibition for International Threads. Contrary to original plans I had to drive because of the train strikes in France, and although I was a bit non-plussed about that, I was kind of glad I hadn’t bought a ticket earlier because there are no refunds when there are strikes and I would have been rather mad about that. This was I spent two days driving, broke the journey visiting my best friend whom I hadn’t seen in person in a while and listened to several more of the 16 CDs of my favorite audio book while traversing Switzerland.

The exhibition was put up really quickly and I am very pleased at how good it looks. 

Empty walls at 1:30 p.m.

Chrisse Seager lent me her husband for certain
helpful actions, and only a little while...

 I have incorporated one quilt which I made for an International Threads challenge into the text messages series, as I think ‘Girl Power’ has a text message in the broad definition of text as linguists would use it, and I used to be a linguist… so now there are 17 pieces in the whole series, and 14 of these are on display. 

'Girl Power' on the right

It’s good to see many people again, I hope to meet new people, and although I think 4 days with opening hours from 9.30 to 18 o’clock is a bit on the longish side, I am enjoying the show.

Slower hours can be filled with stitching - either adding on to 'A Scrap a Day' (with slightly relaxed rules during these days, I may add more pieces per day for the time being), or continuing on a middling I am making for the 70,273 Project, including teaching myself a new and complicated stitch that I now at least understand, even though I won't claim I have mastered it.

We are staying outside of the village in a holiday apartment with a beautiful courtyard that makes one wish it were just a bit warmer already so we could sit outside in the evening, which is not quite possible yet… 

An inviting courtyard...

Somehow this door reminded me of Georgia O'Keeffe's door