Embroidered Expression: UNF students express themselves through hand-stitched embroidery - UNF Spinnaker

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Students are stopping by the Thomas G. Carpenter Library at the University of North Florida to view a student-led exhibit of hand-embroidered sheets as part of the Embroidery for Peace and Memory event.

Located in a display case in Special Collections on the library’s first floor by the staircase, these embroidered pieces include phrases, bursts of creativity, and images hand-stitched onto fabric as a form of student art and expression. Since its debut in 2012, this event has collected over 700 embroidered works created by students in over 13 languages.

Rook Breede is a graphic design student who helped lead the project this year alongside event coordinator and professor Constanza Lopez. Breede is responsible for designing the overall layout for the display case in the library this semester.

“It’s about getting to know what kind of space we have and how to occupy it,” Breede said. “Specifically, the placement is choosing what finished pieces will be the most visual and what will give us a nice variety of topics.”

Lopez said she started hosting this event to allow students to express themselves more visually. Lopez provides embroidery materials, and the students can choose how to express their creativity. The results vary from inspirational words to images of everyday objects, including things like a sun, a turtle or a flower. Other students embroider more controversial and issue-based topics such as saving the bees, women’s rights, food insecurity or environmental pollution.

“I think it is a way of sitting down to talk about the things that concern us all and just listening to one another,” Lopez said. “A way in which communication can be very open and can be very gentle.”

Students who missed the previous embroidering event can attend the next one on Oct. 24, 2024, at 3 p.m. in Room 1105 of the John E. Matthews Jr. Computer Science Building, Building 15.

“What I love about this event is the community, getting everybody together to create and teaching people how to create from their minds and hearts in this physical space,” Breede said.

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