As part of Obsesión! Labor as Pleasure, artist Lina Puerta invites you to a two-hour sewing circle where the act of mending becomes a quiet ritual of care, reflection, and transformation. Participants are encouraged to bring a garment in need of repair or worn textiles ready to be repurposed. Through guided hand-sewing and mending techniques, we’ll give new life to these materials—restoring what’s been worn or reshaping it into small, functional items such as placemats or doilies. This circle offers space to slow down, reconnect with the rhythms of handwork, and engage in conversation around sustainability, memory, and the pleasures of making. Participants are asked to bring either an article of clothing to mend, or an old garment/textile to cut up and turn into something new.

Lina Puerta is a Colombian American artist currently at the Project for Empty Space Residency, Newark, NJ. She creates mixed media sculptures, installations, collages, handmade paper paintings, and wall hangings to examine the relationship between nature and the human-made, engaging themes of food justice, xenophobia, hyper-consumerism, and ancestral knowledge.