"It's a piece about fabric woven into memory
How faded lace and silk can be held together by thinning thread..."

Collecting Loss: Weaving Threads of Memory is a community-based art project about gathering and sharing stories that exist through the clothing of our loved ones who have died. With contributions of clothing and stories from people of all walks of life, origins, and having experienced the deaths of siblings, spouses, friends, colleagues, and other loved ones, threads of memory will be woven together. Contributions will become part of an exploration of what happens when individual pieces of cloth and story form a collective fabric.

Collections are commonly for nice things, pleasant things, things we enjoy looking at and having around, while loss brings to mind leaving behind, emptiness, absence where there once was presence.

Why would anyone collect loss? Why the clothing of our loved ones? Because...

• Clothing captures moments in time, holds nostalgic reminders of smells, sights, sounds, and bodies that can evoke a range of responses.


• Clothing can act as a reminder of memories that were once so rich and vivid, and over time have faded.


• Clothing, like memory, suggests impermanence. It is delicate, wears thin, fades, stains, and can disintegrate, thread by thread.


• Clothing no longer occupied by a body, like memory over time, can hold stories that are never told before disappearing.

Collecting Loss will tell some of these stories. It will become a living, breathing public memorial that heals, educates and stimulates dialogue around the often private experience of losing a loved one.

Rationale

Grief is experienced within a social context. The death of someone can be life-changing and profoundly altering. Yet, an event of such magnitude is given no place for discussion and elaboration in modern media and life. Bereaved people often end up grieving in silence and isolation.

The idea of collecting loss grows out of a desire and recognized need to:

• Preserve and honour memories;
• Provide a visual and verbal gathering place for grief;
• Explore change by weaving individual threads of cloth and story into shared fabric;
• Offer healing, education and stimulation of dialogue around death of a loved one.

Process

1. Clothing and stories will be collected from loved ones. Clothes will be photographed individually and stories catalogued.



2. When enough clothing is collected, it will be cut into pieces. New articles of clothing will be formed and sewn together with individual pieces.
   
   The intention is to create 'new' articles of clothing as a metaphor for the transformation of loss. The clothing changes shape and adopts new forms. As well, these 'new' clothes are examples of the threads that hold all our loved ones' clothing together, suggesting we are not alone with our grief.



3. Concurrently, individual stories will be worked with to distill common themes. In written and recorded form stories will be shaped to accompany the visual narrative.
   
   The intention is to create audio and written pieces that will integrate with photographic images and clothing, giving voice to the living, the dead, grief and memories, animating the photographic images and clothing. Ultimately, these pieces will also serve as examples of the threads that weave together experiences of death for the living.



4. A gathering for all contributors will be held (location permitting) in which we can view, experience and discuss the clothing and stories which have grown out of our individual losses



5. A public art exhibit will allow members of the general public to witness, reflect and become involved through experiencing what was collected and created.



6. The final goal of the project is to create a book that will document the project and pieces created from it, including contributor and public response.

Some Final Thoughts...

"...once removed from the body, dress lacks fullness and seems strange, almost alien, and all the more
poignant to us if we can remember the person who once breathed life into the fabric."

~ J. Entwhistle ~

What happens to clothing once occupied by someone who has passed away? Is it left sitting in a pile on the floor as it was when death came? Is it given away, thrown away, washed or unwashed, folded away in a drawer, or hung indefinitely in a quiet closet, in a quiet untouched room? Whatever choices are made, one thing remains the same:

the clothing of a deceased loved one is no longer just dress.

It holds a narrative of memory, body, identity, sweat and smell that is a souvenir of loss.

With the voluntary contributions of a diverse group of bereaved people, Collecting Loss: Weaving Threads of Memory will present some meaningful and powerful possibilities that invite the dead to be remembered and the living to witness what can happen when memories are given a place to gather in living, breathing form.