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HAPPY HOUR - moments of solidarity

 

an intercultural communion project by HEIM.ART®
in cooperation with the Textile Center Haslach

In the summer of 2022, there will be embroidery in the Haslach church tower!Lengths of linen with a special story are being stretched out on 7 floors in the church tower. They are now being embroidered with colorful threads. It's about doing something together, about the dialogue that arises with needle and thread, about the desire to create something in solidarity!

Embroider - take a break - enjoy the view from above - be there and feel the moment of connection!

The hands-on activity is equally suitable for children and adults.

Opening times for individuals:
14 July to 13 August: Thurs - Sat, 16:00 - 19:00
for groups by appointment until October 15th

Additional dates during the summer symposium (July 11 - 29):
every Tuesday between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m

Contact for group bookings:
Textile Centre Haslach, Tel: 07289 72300, e-mail: office@textiles-zentrum-haslach.at
or: Joachim Eckl (HEIM.ART®), Tel: 0664 1618028

BACKGROUND

In 2017 the art and culture project BLEICHZEIT (bleaching time) took place in Haslach. As in the past, lengths of raw linen were laid out on the former bleaching meadow in Haslach and local folks were invited to place one of their old garments on them and then water everything for three weeks and let them bleach in the moonlight and sunlight. After the BLEACHING TIME, the silhouettes of the garments could be seen as dark pictures on a light background, like an oversized photo.On the one hand they tell of the slow fading away of a tradition, but on the other hand they also tell of identity and the power of doing and remembering together. (Review: https://textile-kultur-haslach.at/de/2017, bleaching time film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYw6BmDuVXo

Now, a few years later, at the suggestion of the artist Joachim Eckl, this project is taken up again, albeit under different circumstances: things have changed in the meantime. Between 2017 and today lies the period of pandemic-related isolation, and dramatic geopolitical changes have also left their mark. Once again, many people lost their homes. In general, the confidence of many has become brittle in recent years and a fragile attitude towards life has spread.

This is where the "HAPPY HOUR - Moments of Solidarity" project comes in. The BLEICHZEIT linen-lengths from 2017 will be installed on 7 floors in the Haslach church tower in the summer of 2022 and everyone is invited to continue working on these special textiles, to embroider them and thus give them new life. By working on this communion project - be it in groups, in pairs or even alone - the stories of the people involved will be continued stitch by stitch on the linen fabrics installed like canvases. In a todays situation, after the time of separation and isolation, we want to provide space to create something together again and, in addition to the locals, want to invite people with migration background to show their own identity with needle and thread.

Textile activities in particular have the power to create connections, often without words. Text and textile have the same origin. They derive from the Latin word texere, which roughly means "putting together", in the sense of connecting. Just as a text becomes a meaningful when many individual words are put together, so too is a fabric made up of many individual threads, stitches or meshes. Textiles speak their own language that tells of cohesion and bonding - intuitively and across all cultures.
By offering the linen fabric lenghts of the Haslacher BLEICHZEIT for further processing, a sign is set – both for those who have lived in this area for a long time and for those who have come here from other parts of the world. The 'shadow images of the past', which are slowly fading, thus will be breathed life into through color and shine.
The embroidery technique was not chosen by chance. This mobile technology offers maximum freedom of design, occurs in all cultures and has the most diverse characteristics. Embroidery is always about penetrating a boundary. Only when the needle pierces the fabric can the thread find a hold.
Some of the lengths of fabric are mounted like walls in the church tower and cannot be handled by one person alone. Only when someone stands on both sides of the wall and one accepts the other's needle can an embroidered dialogue emerge - across all barriers. Stitch by stitch, who is on the inside and who is on the outside position is put into perspective. The location is also important: the church tower in Haslach was originally built as a defense tower to protect against attacks from outside. Its thick walls were once intended to offer protection to the people of Haslach and ensure security and stability. The building should now convey this feeling of protection to everyone who works in it. The tower also conveys the gesture of striving higher up. 

The project "HAPPY HOUR - moments of connection" is - like the BLEICHZEIT 2017 - a cooperation between the artist Joachim Eckl (HEIM.ART®) and the TEXTILE CENTER HASLACH and the association TEXTILE KULTUR HASLACH.

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