The Little Squares of Hope: Shelter from Storm project, is an initiative launched by The Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ) in commemoration of Sukkot, the Jewish festival marking the 40-year post exodus period of displacement.
This project creatively explores the contemporary significance of shelter through art, which has been created by refugee and faith communities across the UK.
Individual experiences and interpretations of shelter have been expressed onto fabric squares and quilted together. Accompanying this artwork within the quilt are seven information plaques. Each reflecting on one of the seven representative character traits of the Ushpizin, the supernal guests whose spirits visit during Sukkot, and the salience of these characteristics in cultivating a just system of refuge.
This quilt has formulated the walls of a pop-up Sukkah, a temporary hut constructed in ritual of Sukkot, and has been pitched at JW3 Jewish Community Centre London and exhibited online by the Jewish Museum London.
In quilting individual expression, art serves, not only as an outlet for experience to be heard, but, as a thread of common humanity; building connection and bringing people closer together. Elevating Sukkots central theme into a contemporary context and encouraging the construction of a society which treats all people with dignity. A society which, without scepticism nor hostility, offers those projected into exile, ‘shelter from storm’ (Isa 4:6).
