BCM Storytelling Chair by Las Witchas Collective

About the Creation

For the Haringey FEast, Las Witchas Collective created 2 chairs - one in collaboration with members of the local community at Bruce Castle Museum & Archive and another inspired by their own artistic practice. 

Their own chair took inspiration from the community of Abya Yala (Latin Americans) in Haringey and London, Las Witchas Collective called upon the memories of their grandparents that would inform and materialise into textile pieces and representative phrases to upholster and paint their own community storytelling chair. Using poetry, music and art they appealed to the Canción de la Abuela ("The song of grandmother"), to remember ancestors. As migrants, personal memories and specially the relationships with their ancestors, are what keep their roots and connections to their homeland alive. They are an important part of their identity as a community. 

For the community chair, participants helped make and design the fabric pieces which were used to upholster the chair. Las Witchas shared music, accompanied by the beating of drums and voices singing traditional songs whilst participants painted and embroidered. Makers were encouraged to bring fabrics and to share their own stories through creative writing and painting onto the fabric. Makers and artists added their own memories and used their imagination to create images or poetic lines, transferred to fabric patches and patchworked onto the chair.