Tuesday, 19 March 2024

Textile Details

'Auf der Flucht 1945 / Fleeing in 1945', by Mara Loytved-Hardegg. (Photo: Martin Melaugh)
'Auf der Flucht 1945 / Fleeing in 1945', by Mara Loytved-Hardegg. (Photo: Martin Melaugh)

 

Title of Textile:Auf der Flucht 1945 / Fleeing in 1945
Maker: Mara Loytved-Hardegg
Country of Origin: Germany
Year Produced: 2010
Size (cm): 32cm x 40cm
Materials: Scraps of material sewn onto burlap
Type of Textile: Arpillera
Description:

In this arpillera Mara vividly remembers fleeing in 1945 as a child from the Russians in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in the Soviet zone, north of Berlin.

“We were about three months running westwards during the nights and hiding in the woods during the days. I was not yet three and had to run with my bigger brother of five years old. My mother took the one year old sister in her arms. Finally my mother returned with us to Ulrichshusen where we had found shelter in 1943 when bombing in the cities became too hard. When we returned … my mother had to work in the fields for the Russians. There was little food and a lot of people died of typhus.”

Almost 65 years after the event Mara reflects that “children are always the fragile ones” in such traumatic events “…mark[ing] their whole life.” She connects her experience to our present: “ all these children suffering now in these new wars is deeply concerning.”

This arpillera was sewn by Mara in one of the workshops -EVACUATION- that took place as part of the associated activities during the exhibition The Human Cost of War, at the Tower Museum, Derry City Council Heritage and Museum Service, 2011.

Owner: Conflict Textiles collection
Location: c/o Graciela Echiburu Belletti, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile
Original / Replica: Original
Photographer: Martin Melaugh
Provenance: Mara Loytved-Hardegg



Textile exhibited at: Arpilleras: Community Action and Empowerment through Narrative Textile Art, 6/03/2012 - 6/04/2012
Textile Accounts of Conflicts, 17/11/2014 - 18/11/2014
Textile Accounts of Conflicts, 6/02/2015 - 7/03/2015
Arpilleras: Verhalen over leven / Arpilleras: stories of life and survival, 23/09/2015 - 20/11/2015
ARPILLERAS: verhalen over leven / ARPILLERAS: stories of life and survival, 16/01/2016 - 24/02/2016
TRAVELLING TAPESTRIES: STORIES OF THE CHILEAN ARPILLERAS, 10/03/2016 - 11/03/2016
Enduring Life: Arpillera Voices, 11/05/2016 - 15/07/2016
War-Torn Children, 1/03/2017 - 15/04/2017
War-Torn Children , 17/07/2017 - 28/07/2017
War-Torn Children, 2/10/2017 - 27/10/2017
War-Torn Children, 8/02/2018 - 24/03/2018
Arpilerak: Memoriaren Haritik Etorkizuna Josten / Arpilleras: Al Hilo De La Memoria, 12/04/2018 - 24/04/2018
ARIPILLERAS: AL HILO DE LA MEMORIA, TEJIENDO FUTURO / Arpilleras: Knitting the Future, 25/04/2018 - 30/05/2018
War-Torn Children, 5/09/2018 - 29/11/2018
From Home to Here: Stories of Languages Old and New, 5/11/2019 - 20/12/2019
Conflict, Famine and Displacement: Then and Now, 13/06/2020 - 27/06/2020
Light during the darkness: Remembering the Holocaust, 18/01/2021 - 1/02/2021
Nonviolence in Action: Antimilitarism in the 21st Century, 24/03/2021 - 31/12/2021
Suitcases: Telling Textile Travels /Maletas: Contando Viajes Textiles, 1/10/2021 - 7/11/2021
A World of Stories, 13/05/2023 - 26/08/2023
Arpilleras Poéticas, 7/12/2023 - 12/02/2024
From Displacement to Empowerment, 11/06/2024 - 7/09/2024



Textile Detail Image(s)