THREADS OF HOPE

October 6, 2020

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many members of the SoHE community have been forced to address new challenges. With the support of the Center for Design and Material Culture, the students in REACT, the Threads Design & Fashion Event, invited their fellow students, faculty, staff, and alumni to both acknowledge and reflect on these hardships as well as imagine what could be.

In order to uphold physical distancing measures, we mailed each participant an 8 by 8 inch blank square of masonite board. Each person filled their square with images or words to express their own reflections on hope, and returned it to Nancy Nicholas Hall. These 34 individual creative responses make up this mural.

Bound together as a collective voice, these individual squares become united in a chorus of connection. Though there are different expressions among the individual compositions, “Threads of Hope” offers a unified message of what students are reflecting on during this time.

This project offers a spark of collective hope as students, faculty, staff gradually return to campus.

As you reflect on these squares, ask yourself: What’s something you hope for?

“Threads of Hope” was developed as part of the student collective Threads Design & Fashion Event – REACT by Assistant Creative Director Sophia Andries x’20, Retailing and Consumer Behavior. Through runway, performance, and narrative, REACT explores the ways designers and students respond to their world. The team is grateful for their advisor Carolyn Kallenborn, Jane Rafferty Thiele Professor in Human Ecology, and the staff of the Center for Design and Material Culture: especially Operations Manager Laura Sims Peck, Photographer Dakota Mace, and Preparator Eric Ford. They are also grateful to all of the artists who contributed their work, and their hope, to make this project possible.