CURRENT COMMUNITY

Embroidery Workshop with Cinthya Santos-Briones

As part of the exhibition Living in Sanctuary, artist Cinthya Santos-Briones invites you to participate in a collective embroidery workshop and stitching circle presented by BAXTER ST in partnership with Magnum Foundation that explores contemporary narratives of migration in the United States.

Participants will embroider phrases drawn from news reports, headlines, and press archives related to the current anti-immigrant political climate. Through the slow, shared practice of embroidery, we will transform words designed for immediate media consumption into a space for dialogue, critical reflection, and collective witness.

Rather than simply reproducing the news, the workshop invites participants to examine how media narratives shape our understanding of migrants and migration. What happens when a story that circulates rapidly across digital screens is translated into the slow rhythm of embroidery? What new meanings emerge when a single phrase is interpreted and stitched by many hands?

Inspired by Chilean arpilleras, Mexico’s Bordados por la Paz collectives, textile initiatives led by women in Colombia, and other Latin American practices that have used textiles to denounce state violence and forced disappearances, the project approaches embroidery as a tool for memory, collective witness, and community repair.

Through stitches made collectively, we will create a material archive of our time—one that resists the fleeting nature of digital media and allows us to pause, observe, and critically engage with the narratives that shape contemporary understandings of migration. Each embroidered piece becomes a space for reflection, listening, and solidarity, as well as a political gesture that confronts the forms of violence affecting migrant communities.

The workshop will be co-facilitated by María José Prudente, a Mixtec Indigenous embroiderer, language rights advocate, attorney, and interpreter in immigration courts.

All materials will be provided, and no prior embroidery experience is required. The workshop will be bilingual (Spanish and English) and will take place over four sessions: Fridays, July 10, 17, and 24, from 4:00–7:00 p.m., with a final session on Saturday, August 1.

While each session can be attended independently, participants are encouraged to join the full series, as the project will be developed collectively across all four gatherings. If you are unable to attend every session, you are welcome to participate in any of them.

Advance registration is required. We look forward to sharing this space of memory, critical reflection, and solidarity with the community.