The Collective Mending Sessions is a series of socially engaged workshops led by artist Catherine Reinhart, centered on collectively mending abandoned quilts. This project cultivates care for cloth and community through the meditative process of slow stitching. Since 2018, Reinhart has led over 40 workshops both in-person and online, repairing seven quilts with hundreds participants from around the world. These workshops resemble a quilting bee where participants learn basic mending and textile care, while building community in a warm, inclusive environment. They cultivate care for cloth and community through mending together and discussions centered around the value of repair. The resulting quilts are transformed from unwanted textile objects into contemporary fiber artworks through the work of many hands, moving toward a more egalitarian model of work. Shared alongside the workshop is an extensive library of resources, ranging from instructional texts on mending to textile history to cultural and craft theory.

Catherine Reinhart is an interdisciplinary artist living in Ames, IA, U.S.A. Reinhart creates fiber work and conducts social practice with abandoned textiles around themes of domestic labor, connection, and care. She received her BFA in Integrated Studio Arts in 2008 from Iowa State University. In 2012, she completed her MFA in Textiles from the University of Kansas. Her works have been exhibited locally, regionally, and nationally. Catherine is the recipient of numerous grants and residencies. She was recently honored as a 2020 Iowa Artist Fellow, a 2021 Artist-in-Residence at the Terrain Residency in Springfield, IL, and an inaugural recipient of the Alex Brown Foundation’s Artist-in-Residence in Des Moines, IA (2022). The Collective Mending Sessions was recently selected for the “Mending and Making” Workshop presented by Endangered Material Knowledge Programme, The British Museum (London 2023). For more information, please visit collectivemendingsessions.com.

This event is being shared at Berger Park Cultural Center as part of ROMANSUSAN.ORG/Movement-Studies – a programming series investigating social and environmental transitions.

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Roman Susan Art Foundation is an artist-run nonprofit based in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Roman Susan develops and supports new locally-focused opportunities to create, display, and experience contemporary art.

This program is partially supported by a grants from the Illinois Arts Council Agency through awards from the National Endowment for the Arts. This project is partially supported by a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.

Roman Susan Art Foundation NFP is supported in part by 150 individual donors, Gen Ops Plus Grants from The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Hyde Park Art Center Artists Run Chicago Fund, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, The MacArthur Funds for Culture, Equity, and the Arts at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, 6018North, AD3 Innovation Bootcamp, An Sylvia Exhibitions, Foundation Source, Lucky Pierre, Story Luck, and in-kind support from Cargo Collective, Lawyers for the Creative Arts, and Sloane Communications. To support this ongoing work, please visit romansusan.org/support.

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Tags: Berger Park Cultural Center, Catherine Reinhart, Chicago, Edgewater, Movement Studies, Roman Susan, The Collective Mending Sessions