Sima Elizabeth Shefrin has devoted her life to stitching for social change, using her talents as a quilter to unite people from different backgrounds in a common goal of making a better world.
The Gabriola Island fabric artist will be tells her story of the Middle East Peace Quilt, an international community art project, 11 a.m. April 29, at the First Unitarian Fellowship of Nanaimo, 595 Townsite Rd.
Created by more than 300 people from around the world, the peace quilt has toured North America since 1999, shown in churches, synagogues, community centres, fairs, summer camps, art galleries and the National Archives of Canada.
Participants in the project are asked to create a quilt square answering the question, “What is your vision of peace in the Middle East?” Some of the answers are inspiring, others are heart-breaking.
“I think of the peace quilt as a room full of people who will never meet, listening to each other’s stories,” said Shefrin. “Where the quilt travels it promotes connections between Jewish and Arab communities.”
There will be an exhibition of panels from the Middle East Peace Quilt and Shefrin’s This Land is My Land project, fabric self-portraits and messages from Palestine, from 12:3-1:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Hall.
For more information, please go to www.middleeastpeacequilt.ca or www.stitchingforsocialchange.ca.