Liz Kueneke’s participatory sewing projects enable crafty individuals to stitch parts of their community on an embroidered map. Kueneke has already completed these knitted maps in places like Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Bangalore, and Manhattan.
Liz Kueneke’s participatory embroidery projects are particularly poignant because they connect individuals within the same community in a productive way. Since each person decides what and how they want to embroider the map, these crowdsourced social histories give a perspective that doesn’t exist with ‘official’ maps.
Embroidered Urban Maps
Liz Kueneke Lets Crafters Stitch Details of Their Community
Trend Themes
1. Participatory Embroidery Projects - There is an opportunity for businesses to create interactive experiences that engage consumers in the production process, adding value to the final product in a unique way.
2. Crowdsourced Social Histories - Businesses can leverage the power of crowdsourcing to create more dynamic and personalized products that reflect the values of their target audience.
3. Community-connected Products - Companies that create products with a focus on community-building have the opportunity to tap into consumer desire for social connection and purposeful engagement in their everyday lives.
Industry Implications
1. Crafting - There is an opportunity for crafting businesses to create more collaborative and community-focused experiences that bring people together in new and meaningful ways.
2. Travel and Tourism - Tourism companies can leverage participatory embroidery projects as an innovative way to engage tourists with the local community and culture, creating a more immersive travel experience.
3. Social and Cultural Planning - Planners focused on social and cultural development can use participatory embroidery projects as a tool for community-building and as a way to gather diverse perspectives on local history and identity.