The Art of Empowerment
“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”
~Nelson Henderson.
Listen to this latest music video by the singer/songwriter team of Nimo Patel and Daniel Nahmod and filmmaker Ellie Walton which captures the spirit of doing our part. Planting seeds, that is what we at Pure Felt are trying to do too in our own very way. And we love it!
Do you know the principle of Kintsugi? This is a Japanese art form where broken pieces of bone china are glued with a mix of gold and epoxy and where the break line remains visible. In this manner the original plate or cup will become even more beautiful: imperfections turn into a sign of beauty and strength.
A couple of months ago French artist Helene Guggenheim met a woman. When the woman changed her clothes Guggenheim noticed a huge scar where once the woman`s left breast had been. Guggenheim was touched by the vulnerability of the scar and linked this to the beautiful message behind the philosophy of Kintsugi.
This was the start of the project ‘Mes cicatrices, Je suis d’elles, entièrement tissé‘ (My scars, of them I am fully woven). In a series of photographs and video performance the artist subtly covers the scars of models in leaf gold. Like the broken pottery the scars turn into a sign of power and life instead of a painful memory.
Scars are part of the tapestry of life. They can be powerful reminders of how strong people are – revealing how they have come through life altering events like cancer. However they happened, they all have a story to tell and mark a passage of healing.
Guggenheim: “Every scar tells a story in which we are a hero. It marks a wound that will never disappear.
Albeit it is also the living proof of healing and a symbol that we have conquered our tragedies. My project focuses on the combination of delicacy and power that all human beings have in common.” To be applied maybe in our discovering hands art installation? Who knows ….
Jointly with about 20 students and 2 teachers of the International School of Zug Pure Felt is working on 12 hand-felted felt banners of 3 m2 each which will depict the confronting message of breast cancer, survival and hope.
The purpose of the art installation and its traveling exhibition is to raise awareness for early breast cancer detection by trained blind women through the proven discovering hands method (www.discovering-hands.de) and to raise funds for a feasibility study in Switzerland to bring this discovering hands concept to Switzerland (and beyond).
We want to accomplish this through a travelling exhibition of our impactful yet graceful felt art installation designed and created for this purpose, which exhibition will be accessible for both the seeing and the visually impaired (the art work may be touched and texts will also be in braille).
View our discovering-hands project.
PURE FELT is on a mission to empower vulnerable women and challenged unemployed youth who mainly live in poverty stricken regions of the world. We are committed to impact their lives through our large-scale felt art commissions.
Thus, “empowerment” is one of PURE FELT`s key values and key words. But what does empowerment actually mean in general? And what does empowerment and The Art of Empowerment mean to us and how we are rolling out our mission?
Empowerment refers to policies and measures designed to increase the degree of autonomy and self-determination in the lives of people and in communities in order to (re-)enable them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting (again) on their own authority. Empowerment refers both to the process of self-empowerment and to professional support of people, which enables them to overcome their sense of powerlessness and lack of influence, and to recognise and eventually use their resources and chances.
Empowerment also includes encouraging, and developing the skills for, self-sufficiency, with a focus on eliminating the future need for charity or welfare in the individuals of the group. This process can be difficult to start and to implement effectively. With our felt art installation commissions and traineeships we are focusing on economic development, and the empowerment approach which focuses on mobilizing the self-help efforts of the poor, rather than providing them with social welfare, if available at all.
The PURE FELT felt art projects empower women and unemployed youth with the resources to rise above poverty. Empowered women and youth transform their families, communities, and the world. We provide access to temporary employment programs, to hard and soft skills transfer, internships and improve youth employability. There are three components to our approach:
Enjoy!
Dianne and the Pure Felt team
This is our digital portal to a world where art meets social impact. We’re glad you found it because you belong here.
You belong because you heard about the work and it struck a chord.
You belong because you have the power to commission, co-fund, volunteer or simply encourage Pure Felt to deliver life changing projects.
You belong, because like us, at the end of the day, you know that beauty matters and art is powerful, but only when people are able to interact with it.
We hope that you spend some time looking around the website and become a frequent visitor to our blog. You’ll get to witness the impact we’re making and how you can be involved. Here are a few pointers to get you started:
– Check out our projects page here. We’re so proud to have created some amazing work with some amazing people. You have joined us just as we launch a new program with the International School in Zug. A program that will provide education across multiple disciplines of felting, curating, and fundraising for a feasibility study for the discovering hands© concept in Switzerland so that gifted blind women can be trained and employed as lifesaving early breast cancer detecting examiners. We’ll be keeping you up to date on progress so sign up for the blog here so you don’t miss a moment.
– If you came to learn more about our commissioning process we can help with that. You can contact us here or get more familiar with our process here. You provide the oxygen to many of our projects so we are pleased to say that we have honed a very straight forward process to help corporations and individuals sponsor projects.
– From an art or craft background yourself? Well, we’re very excited about The Guild. This is our community of mentors, educators and practitioners who keep our heart beating, learn about the Guild here.
– And no digital portal would be complete without the buzz of social media, so please do join our Facebook page here. We love to share our thoughts and ideas. Please be part of that discussion, whether it’s how we can help struggling refugees, or how we can be inspired by a simple thought or object and be called into action.
You belong in this community that is tirelessly committed to its mission: to evoke social impactful change through unique felt art projects, and we thank you for your time, support and encouragement.
Dianne and the Pure Felt team
Pure Felt is a social enterprise that empowers, employs and connects unemployed youth and women. In cooperation with corporations and organizations with a heartbeat, we are on a mission to evoke social impactful change through the creation of unique collaborative CSR textile art commissions.
