Stitching Story: Memory Extensions in Needle and Thread - Saturday 6th September

A meditative workshop in writing, stitching, and storytelling through fiber art 

Memories live in our bodies as much as in our minds – sometimes vivid, sometimes faint, always there, just behind the surface. In Stitching Story, you are invited to slow down and connect with memory through writing, meditative reflection, and the tactile language of needle and thread. This heart-led workshop offers a space to reflect, write, and create – transforming personal memories into tangible, lasting art.

In this immersive, hands-on workshop, we’ll begin with a short, guided meditation designed to bring a meaningful memory to the surface. From there, you’ll be led through a free-writing exercise to explore the details, textures, and emotions of that moment. Together, we’ll distill your writing into a few potent words or a single phrase – something that captures the essence of your memory.

After an accessible embroidery demo, we’ll hand-stitch those words into a lost-and-found vintage handkerchief or linen (provided), adding a quiet, tactile layer to your story. Once complete, your handkerchief or linen will be stitched onto a pre-made memory pillow that I provide - a soft, tangible keepsake. Participants are also invited to bring a small personal object or token to tuck into the pillow, adding depth and dimension to the piece.

No writing or sewing experience is needed – just an openness to explore, create, and connect.

What You’ll Experience:

• Guided memory meditation and reflective writing
• Introduction to fiber arts and embroidery techniques
• Creative transformation of words into stitched stories
• Constructing a personal memory pillow using handkerchiefs or linens and optional keepsakes
• A supportive, welcoming space for sharing and connection

Please bring: A small object or token that carries personal meaning to add to your memory pillow (optional but encouraged). All other materials will be provided.

Join us for a heartfelt journey where memory becomes material, and storytelling is stitched into every fiber.

Date: Saturday 6th September 

Time: 10am - 3:30 pm (with a break for lunch)

Tutor: Enzina Marrari 

Fee: €95 

Level: All levels welcome

Materials: All materials provided. If so desired, please bring a small object or token that carries personal meaning to add to your memory pillow.

Participants: Maximum 12

Venue: Venue in Listowel TBD

Please note: Your payment secures your place in the workshop and is therefore non-refundable. A minimum number of participants is required for workshops to go ahead. If this number is not met, the workshop will be cancelled, and a full refund will be issued.

Bio:

Enzina Marrari is an artist and doctoral student in the Department of Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. She is the recipient of the 2025 Sue Samuelson Award for Best Student Paper in Foodways, and the 2024 Albert George Hatcher Memorial Scholarship for excellence in graduate studies and research. In 2018, she received the Alaska Journal of Commerce’s Top 40 under 40 award for her work in the arts.

She is a conceptual visual and performance artist whose invisible disability informs much of her work. She is driven by confronting the hard stuff. She creates visual stories to reveal the unspoken, the shameful, the forgotten, and the unseen. Her work often challenges and questions the notions of home, place, self, and community and draws inspiration from the environmental landscape, personal and communal stories, and interpersonal vulnerabilities. She thrives in transforming stories into landscapes, audio narratives, physical experiences, or body works. Her medium is concept-driven and manifests as performance, wearable art, installation, mixed media, and poetry. Marrari has taught classes and workshops to students of all ages and levels.

Marrari is a 2017 Rasmuson Foundation Artist Fellow and a 2015 Connie Boochever Fellow. She has been supported by Arts NL, the Awesome Foundation Alaska Chapter, Rasmuson Foundation, Alaska State Council on the Arts, Alaska Arts and Culture Foundation, and Radical Arts for Women. In 2015, she was nominated for an emerging artist award through the Joan Mitchell Foundation. She has been an artist in residence at the Olive Stack Gallery in Listowel, Ireland; Proyecto ‘ace in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and the Cill Rialaig Artist Center in Ballinskelligs, Ireland. She is an Adjunct Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and was a founding partner at @ Studio C in Anchorage, Alaska.

Marrari received a B.A. in Studio Art (concentration: sculpture and figure drawing) from the University of Alaska Anchorage and an M.A. in Studio Art (concentration: installation and performance) from New York University. She is currently working toward a PhD in Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador where her research centers on the folklore of grief and loss, death and dying and the intersections of disability, identity, and art. Marrari has been published in the Journal of American Folklore and San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank’s, Community Development Innovation Review.