STORY QUILTS

Wave Pool and Learning Through Art, Inc. (LTA) have teamed up to exhibit Story Quilts, on view at Wave Pool’s gallery from January 13th through March 2nd, 2024. This will be the first time that all nine of these community-crafted quilts will be on view to the public. 

Story Quilts was a project LTA first began in 2021, as part of a regional and national “truth and reconciliation” program in partnership with ArtsWave and the Centre for Community Resilience at The George Washington University.

Since the project’s inception in 2021, LTA organized ten Community Conversations, which included citizens and neighbors from Cincinnati and beyond who joined in facilitated discussions to share their personal and complicated truths about their experiences with systemic racism and social injustice—as well as proposed solutions which might help us reach reconciliation. 

The resulting quilts demonstrate the concerns of those included in these art-making community discourse driven gatherings.  For example, the “Join Forces for Children” quilt made by educators and health care professionals reflect their care and understanding of the body; whereas the communal textile work crafted by those who attended the Lincoln Grant Scholar House’s Community Conversations, emphasize the organization’s mission towards academic achievement and tending to the health and post-secondary education of single-parent families. 

Each of the nine quilts on view is special and uniquely addresses the difficult questions posed in the midst of these public conversations: that societal injustices are complex and require community buy-in for real change to happen.  These conversations are just one step in that process of integration back into the community.  But witnessing and holding space for difficult truths is another way in which that healing can happen.  To that aim and as part of this exhibition, Wave Pool will also host a Community Conversation on Thursday February 1st, 5 - 7 PM at the gallery, facilitated by LTA.

STORY QUILTS: Community Conversations Made Material will be on view through Saturday, March 2nd, 2024.