A beautiful collaborative work now hangs in the offices of the World Bank Family Network in Washington DC. “Embroidery” WBFN Community Mosaic Inauguration, Sept 12 2024, Photo: Nico Chong & Carla Goncalves Produced from photos of textile patterns from 16 countries, sent in by members from all over the world. The grandmother’s tablecloth from Belarus, the embroidery on the collar of a coat designed by a Polish fashion designer in the 80s, mother of a participant from Poland, a darting bird printed on a fabric from Kenya, and many sari patterns from India made the range of designs colorful and vibrant. The participants’ ability to abstract was astonishing as they transferred a wide variety of motifs onto grids in a pixel pattern. The setting of the glass mosaic tiles was in turn a pleasant, meditative activity for around 20 participants in the network’s office rooms in Washington, which ended in a frenzy of happiness at what had been achieved.

Some were able to participate in the completion of the mosaic in the MosaicMoments workshop: gluing and grouting. Another nice time spent together.

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On September 12th, the community artwork was unveiled by the Chief Curator of the World Bank Art Collection. In this project I had the privilege of working with the communications department and a volunteer coordinator on this project. Normally these are tasks that I also take on in addition to the acquisition, design and technical execution of my community projects. It was a great collaboration with Ewelina Mstowska (WBFN Communications Officer) and Carla Goncalves (WBFN Volunteer Coordinator). Signs of this are this great article by Kim Ward and a database with the different patterns, their origin and meaning and the resulting mosaic design. https://www.wbfn.org/article/one-square-time%E2%80%94-community-mosaic-mural