The Patchwork Healing Blanket – Virtual Exhibition

The Patchwork Healing Blanket: Piece-by-Piece and Country-by-Country is an international textile art project that unites generations of women in a global movement against gender-based violence and the destruction of Mother Earth. In 2019 a group of women artists from Oaxaca and Mexico City, led by Founder/Director Marietta Bernstorff, started working together to develop the Patchwork Healing Blanket/La Manta de Curacíon in response to an outrageous increase in the murder of women in Mexico that year. The artists began to invite women from all over Mexico and the world to participate in making a patchwork cloth piece that speaks out against the violent crimes we are all witnessing through news outlets and social media. The result was tremendous – 600 patchworks were sent to Mexico City from San Miguel Allende, Tijuana, Oaxaca, Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, Brasil, Germany, Greece, England, Spain, Canada, and the United States. The patchworks were sewn together to create large blankets that were displayed in the Zócalo in Mexico City for one day in February 2020, creating a powerful public art installation and a celebration of healing with artists, educators, healers, women, children, and allies.

The Patchwork Healing Blanket will be on view for the public through a virtual art gallery by SPARC from August 8 to September 19. Join us in the virtual gallery for an installation of patchworks by feminist artists, survivors, and advocates from ten countries as women, children, and allies across borders call for an end to the global pandemic of gender-based violence.