Each Child a Light (UCL East)

On the 10th September 10am – 2pm please join us at UCL East to design and create individual quilt squares naming and honouring children killed in the ongoing genocide; and in the making, we offer a safe space to talk, to grieve, to mark and to remember all these young lives. All materials are provided.

More than 17,000 children have been killed in Gaza, and at least another 20,000 children are missing, presumed dead under rubble. This relentless killing is horrifying, the number of dead beyond comprehension. But children are not numbers. Each and every child had a family; were loved; had dreams; and deserved to play, to learn - to live. Every child had a name, a name carefully and lovingly chosen, a name that carried meaning, a family and community history, a personal and a collective identity.

‘Each Child a Light’ sets out to create a much-needed collective response to this unfathomable loss; to create an essential record, a forever testament to these young lives so cruelly stolen. The quilt will name and honour the children of Gaza, creating individual decorative squares in honour of each child, and will honour all those children still lost, as yet un-named. The creation of this memorial will make visible the scale of this atrocity, and in the making of it, it will provide a space to grieve, to mourn, to mark and to remember these young lives. Stitching the children’s names is an act of bearing witness, an act of resistance, an act of solidarity. We will never forget.

Quilts have a long tradition of protest, comfort and memory alongside being practical, treasured decorative textiles. Historically they have captured the personal, family and community histories of people whose stories might otherwise go untold, and of those who are marginalised or silenced by mainstream narratives. We only need to look to the coded quilts of the American Underground Railroad; the AIDS Memorial Quilt ; the Arpilleras of memory and resistance in Chile and the Grenfell Memorial Quilt, for inspiration.

This workshop is part of a 2-week exhibition programme celebrating Palestinian Childhoods: Solidarity & Ṣumūd. Please check out the full programme of events.

This workshop is suitable for adults and accompanied young people 12+. This is a registration-only event and places are limited.