Section 4: The Story We Sew

In collaboration with Professor Hall, Barnard 2025 graduate Carter Watts will showcase her community quilting project, “The Story We Sew,” emerging from workshops she led in Spring 2025 at Barnard’s Design Center with the Office of Community Engagement & Inclusion— bringing together students, staff, and faculty, as well as local residents of Morningside Heights and West Harlem, such as members of Lifeforce in Later Years (LiLY.) Referencing the AIDS Memorial Quilt which is now recognized as the largest community arts project in history, Watts is working with participants to design and stitch their own squares into a larger project focused on creating community healing. Funded by the Campus Compact Newman Civic Fellowship, Carter’s work embodies her conviction that providing peers and neighbors an opportunity to share their personal stories and engage with the ancestral practices of quilting, would serve to counter polarization and isolation on campus while strengthening participants’ sense of being part of a community.

Carter Watts will return to campus as a visiting artist in October 2025, to share the story of the community quilt, and conduct workshops that engage current students and the public.