ESPACE FXMME: GETTING SOFTER

GETTING SOFTER, is a series of workshops on different textile techniques that took place on the Thursday meetings of Espace Fxmme, aiming to create softer vessels of hospitality for the community of Globe Aroma.

From April on the group, using all the acquired knowledge, is designing a series of patchwork curtains (also cushions and rugs) to furnish a softer, more feminine and fluid way of creating and holding space; that of textile.

The elements will be used inside globe aroma but more importantly they will weave a nomadic space, in the form of a tent, that will travel around, manifesting and hosting a safer, intimate space of exchange for wxmen and non binary people in the public sphere, art institutions and wxmen spaces.

Workshop leaders: Golnesa Rezanezhad, artistic coordinator and patchwork artist, Salomé Grdzelischvili, weaving artist, Rae Sita Pratiwi, indonesian batik guru, Ramzi Hassan and Jamileh Ahmadzi, Afghan embroidery experts.

Espace Fxmme creation team: Anna Housiada, Shilemeza Prins, Mimouna Amri, Hafize Azimi, Shorena Noniashvili, Elli Vassalou, ​Ifrah Yusuf,  Salimata Conde, Jasmien De Ryck, Clara de Vos

Workshop contributors: Mirra Markhaeva, Sahra Abdikarin, Taziri Alomrani, ​Soumaya Mahroug, Kaatje Vermeiren, Mona Cornelis, Joan Somers Donnely, Larisa Utesheva, Maria Muehombo, Zam Zadeh,​ ​Pascale Felten, Bruna Esperi, Barbara Prada, Latifa, Christina Phoebe, Stelios Vassalos, Deborah Williams and more.

with the support of Welzijnszorg

• Pattern design and patchwork workshops with Golnesa Rezanezhad
  Golnesa is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and researcher. Her work embraces a wide spectrum of practises from drawing, painting, weaving, patchworking to video installation. She is interested in bringing everyday objects and crafting skills, part of people’s material culture, into her practice, next to gestures to modern life metaphors. Through objects, ornaments and different types of textile, she adds individual and collective stories, memories, or emotional affinities into artistic work. Her work shifts from personal and individual to the bigger collective social and political condition.
  Through her feminist approach and collaborative methods, she
  converts a self-reflection (of an artist) to the collective-reflection (of a group of people) in the artwork. Through the involvement of her participants’ skills and material cultures, she examines the notion of culture and cultural diversity after modernism and with immigration surging waves in postmodernism. In this relation, the spatial claim and locational identity about land, institutional space, and public space is also her concern and part of the challenge that her works offer.

• Weaving workshops met Salomé Grdzelischvili
  

• Batik workshops met Rae Sita Pratiwi
  Batik is an Indonesian traditional craft where one can draw motifs and patterns using wax on cotton fabric. It is a reflection of forgotten times, spaces and identities.
  Rae uses Batik as a way to not forget her roots and culture. As a foreigner living in Belgium, the question of identity is always something intriguing for her. Personal identity by definition is a concept one develops about themselves over the course of life. Thus may include the aspect of life that one has no control over, such as where they grew up, the language they speak, or the colour of their skin, as well as choices they make in life, such as how to spend time and what one believes. Rae holds thematic artistic, cultural and creative workshops using collaborative approaches and participatory processes. Engaging people in different ways of communication to reach a common ground is always an exciting challenge for her. Storytelling methods, cadaver exquisite, incorporated during the workshop generate ideas through texts and visuals from the participants. Later on, the material created will form the basis for the Batik patterns.

• Afghan embroidery with Ramzi Hassan, Samineh
  Hamdard & Jamileh Ahmadzi
  Embroidery in Afghanistan and southern Iran has been one of the important art forms. Women, mainly, learn this art from their mothers and pass it on to the next generation. They embroider different pieces of fabrics to decorate their homes and design clothes. Every child born in Afghanistan possess pieces of embroidery which are giftedto them by female relatives. In Afghanistan embroidery is also taught in schools to girls students. In recent decades, many fashion designers have inspired and applied these regional embroidery techniques to their designs.
  Now they are invited to collaborate in the project of Espace Fxmme: GETTING SOFTER together with other women textile artists, creating safer and softer vessels of hospitality for the community of Globe Aroma.

If interested send an email at elli.vassalou@globearoma.be

ABOUT

• Golnesa Rezanezhad has learned to swing and knit from her mother, patchwork making from her aunt, and a little bit of weaving, a long time ago, from her grandmother. In her teenage years, her parents and the environment of the time encouraged her to pursue a university education. She is trained as a visual artist in Iran and in Belgium.

• Salomé Grdzelischvili works on natural and dyed wool, it is a very pleasant work for her, like a therapy. From this natural fabric one can make almost everything that is related to textiles. She has mastered the technique of felt and weaving rugs and carpets in her home country Georgia. Her dream is to open her own small workshop where she can assemble her artworks, wall panos, carpets and any other decor, as well as other designs and accessories.
  

• Rae Sita Pratiwi, originally from Indonesia, is a creative and social engineer based in Gent. She is passionate about environmental and humanitarian issues. Her artistic practice and research is currently evolving around Batik and textile, using natural dyes and sustainable materials.

• Ramzieh, Samineh, and Jamileh are three women born in Afghanistan. Jamileh has been a teacher and artisan and has created many pieces of embroideries in her home country and now in Belgium. Jamileh and Ramzi learned many embroidery techniques from their mothers, other women among their friends and relatives and also in school in Afghanistan. They embroider pieces for their homes, to gift to their loved ones. Moreover, in the recent years that they have lived In Belgium, they delivered their own skills to interested individuals by participating in artistic projects such as ‘ Wie is er bang voor Fatima Sultan?”.

• ESPACE FXMME – WOMXN SPACE, created shortly before the pandemic, is a time-based space taking place every Thursday within Globe Aroma. It is a platform for female/non-binary artists and creatives to create safer space in an environment previously dominated by a male presence.