Pockets of Love

‘The Love Pockets’ Project
Conversations in making & courage.

Dzaleka Arts Lab (DAL) https://dzalekaartslab.org was formed by the participants of the ‘VITAL Signs’ workshops delivered since 2022.https://www.sustainable-fashion.com/vital-signs. Together we collaborate twice yearly in person in Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Malawi https://www.dzaleka.com/p/dzaleka-refugee-camp.html and throughout the year over WhatsApp groups. This collaborative practice connects and integrates research, KE and the curriculum.

This piece by DAL was created collectively in response to their chosen theme of ‘Home’.

The ‘Pockets of Love’ https://dzalekaartslab.org/pockets-of-love is in practice, a work of resilience and innovation in the form of a creative response to a local scam the refugee team encountered when seeking second-hand clothes to co design and make diverse new pieces as an output of the Lab. They expected to receive enough material to make many artefacts; the small usable amount meant the group had to reimagine what to do. The pockets were the only plentiful parts available, so many weeks of cutting and sewing began.

Knowing that their works would be brought back to the UK, the pockets also suggested a novel way to communicate with others. Within each one is a secret message from each refugee maker to the students back at London College of Fashion, who will, in turn, respond in kind with their own design brief delivered through stitch, print, weave, or a digital response.

The weight and size of the finished piece also suggested it as a unique blanket, intended for healing trauma and the continuance of surprise conversations to inspire research, KE and people across continents; those makers from very different cultures and life circumstances who may otherwise never meet.

The project is now a part of a DAL website, created by our film making collaborator, David Betteridge in November 2024. The site shares all outputs to date and is linked to an arts sales platform (ZORA), thus also creating a new online opportunity for livelihood creation for the group.

Since the creation of the physical piece AI has been used to generate new digital visualisations, trained through the story and images of “Pockets of love”, and these will be added to the above sales platform.

Funds raised through a DAO (Decentralized, autonomous, organization) are sustaining DAL to create further works in collaboration with us informing decolonized curriculum and research.

• https://dzalekaartslab.org
• https://www.dzaleka.com/p/dzaleka-refuge...
• https://dzalekaartslab.org/pockets-of-lo...