Within just a couple of days of shared
conversations within the Familia, and particularly inspired by moments with Mauro,
Manuel and Daniela, I suddenly had a clearer idea in mind of how to document one
aspect of this journey: the unique stories of all the individuals I’m meeting. My intention is to invite all the friends I
make along the way to share a little of their story on postcards that ask: 1. A
challenge overcome; 2. A dream for the future; 3. A hope for the global
community. (You can definitely see the link to the inspiration of Candy Chang
in this one!)
A
challenge I overcame
A dream
for my future
A hope for the global community
The postcard will also ask for the friends’
email addresses, and my intention is to gather all of these online and make
them accessible to all contributors so that all contributors can be in touch
with all others, even if they have never met in person, with the potential to
contact one another and share homes, journeys or projects with one another in
future travels..... perhaps a more personalised version of Couch Surfing or the
cycle-touring specific Warm Showers that I have happily hosted through. An online manifestation of the “Solidaridad
de los Viajeros” perhaps? :-)
Also patchwork imagery has become a
recurring symbol for community in my artwork over the last year (as some of you
may have noticed :-) !) and I’m imagining incorporating this alongside the
postcards by hand-sewing a blanket of photo-portraits of all the friends who
have contributed to the project once I’m back in the UK. The symbolism of traditional hand-sewn
patchwork quilts seems a particularly apt symbol for the
unique-individual-within-the-community, hence why I am continually returning to
it in my representations of how we organise ourselves in communities, investigating
how we can maintain and celebrate our individuality whilst collaborating and
interacting in the strength of the collective whole, hence the logo for this project, a patchwork ONE.
Community fascinates me both on a local
level and a global level – what does it really mean for us as individuals on a
day-to-day basis to be living within a globalized world? How is increasing travel and online
collaboration within socially conscious groups such as Diseño social impacting our
understanding of what it means to belong in a global community and the power
that offers us to affect social change?
My hope and intention on the return to the
UK would be to create a homely space (perhaps a bedroom or living room) where
my friends and family can snuggle in the warmth of the patchwork blanket whilst
‘meeting’ the friends from this journey through their photos, and the stories
they have shared on their postcards, arranged perhaps as a mobile (which in
Spanish is a ‘trapa sueños’ which also translates as ‘dream-catcher’ –
appropriate as the cards would carry tales of personal dreams). I’d
also hope my friends and family would add their own contributions throughout
the evening, and perhaps we could post their postcards to the South American
friends afterwards? I also wonder would it also be possible to invite the South
American contributors to meet us through an online group chat? (The logistics
of this would have to be investigated to make sure online folk would be genuinely
included in the gathering).
Writing all these ideass out I wonder if perhaps
this ONE project is in fact in a way a portrait of my own personal global
community and an open invitation to my friends and family to join it, extend it
and play within it?
My responses on the ONE postcard:
A challenge overcome: Have come out the
other side of difficult years of depression to feel at peace , having found my Self
and my path.
A dream for the future: That my art and project work may have a
genuine positive social impact.
A hope for the global community: That with increasing travel and communication
online our collective global consciousness deepens and leads us to a point of
genuine equality and inclusion where we respect and celebrate difference within
one world within which everyone can move and participate freely as they wish.
Yay! The joy of sensing a belonging within the
global village - the “aldea global” and the potential it holds!
:-)
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