Event Details
Exhibition poster featuring an arpillera 'Hope remains alive', Anonymous submission, c2012. (Photo: Fiona Clark)
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| Exhibition and associated activities: | Story Threads: Creative Readings |
| Description: | This exhibition celebrates over a decade of creative assessments made by students of Spanish in the School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen’s University Belfast. It comprises a sample of 26 arpilleras created in response to short stories by the Chile-Costa Rican author, Tatiana Lobo (1939-2023), whose collection, Tiempo de Claveles, is also included. There are a number of accompanying books on display donated for the exhibition by Dr Fiona Clark (QUB) and Roberta Bacic (curator of Conflict Textiles collection).
The exhibition celebrates the creative potential and deeper links between life and literature that are made possible through material thinking and the sewing process. Working with textiles enables the students to re-tell Lobo’s stories of socio-environmental concerns and to include elements of their own life experiences and the themes that are important to them in their own environments.
In conversation with the rotating ARK / Conflict Textiles exhibition in the McClay Library, the international nature of story cloths is also celebrated through the inclusion of one arpillera made by the women of the Hermandad (Sewing Cooperative) in Santa María de Fe, Paraguay, and a number of images of other works by the Cooperative, including accounts of the repression of the Ligas Agrarias Cristianas (Christian Agrarian Leagues) under the Stroessner dictatorship.
Exhibition is open to the public:
o Monday – Friday: 8am-11am & 5pm-8pm
o Saturday: 10am – 3pm
o Sunday: 1pm-3pm
Underpinning research:
Clark, F. (2022), ‘Literary Arpilleras: Textiles as Place-Based, Creative Pedagogy’, Modern Languages Open, 0(1), p.11. DOI:
This exhibition builds on previous collaborations with Conflict Textiles:
• Two arpilleras by Dr Fiona Clark's students have been exhibited in several Conflict Textiles exhibitions.
• Conflict Textiles arpillera workshop: Level 2 Spanish students, QUB (Nov. 2023)
Weblinks:
• Special Collections Blog at QUB / Story Threads: Creative Readings Exhibition
• Video overview of the Story Threads: Creative Readings Exhibition, McClay Library, Queen's University Belfast (Videography by Michael Clark Photography) |
| Commissioned by: | Schools of Arts, English and Languages, Queen's University Belfast |
| Date(s): | 18th January 2024 - 5th April 2024 |
| Venue: | McClay Library, Queen's University, Belfast
10 College Park Ave, Belfast BT7 1LP |
| Curator: | Dr Fiona Clark and Special Collections team |
| Facilitator: | Special Collections, McClay Library, Queen’s University Belfast |
| Outcome: | This exhibition proved popular with University staff and students using the library and received frequent visits from the wider public. Dr Fiona Clark held several guided tours, including special sessions for prospective students to the University to highlight the creative assessments used in Modern Language teaching. Graduates whose work was on display also returned to the campus and noted how much they had enjoyed and valued the experience of textile making as part of their studies. |
| Documents: |
• Exhibition invitation: 'Story Threads' - view
• Exhibition poster: 'Story Threads' - view
• Exhibition brochure: 'Story Threads - view
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