FOCUS IN

Welcome Blanket exhibition at the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago.

Jayna Zweiman

In a time that feels incredibly divisive, Welcome Blanket brings people together by recognizing and honoring that we all come from somewhere. The project connects us with new refugee neighbors through sharing stories and symbols of welcome.

I started Welcome Blanket as a long-term effort to combat xenophobia and create a new American tradition that reimagines the message of welcome, celebrates our complex collective American narrative, and crafts a world we all want to live in.

Welcome Blanket makes space for difficult conversations about immigration and recontextualizes them with humanity.

Welcome Blanket is a crowd-sourced artistic project that builds a platform of engagement, making, storytelling, and community in support of refugees settling in the United States. Since 2017, more than 6,500 blankets have been made, exhibited, and gifted. 

A New American Tradition
The project is accessible, transgenerational, and inclusive of all of our diverse stories. It weaves together a tapestry of our shared American narratives. At a time when people often say, “No one talks to each other anymore,” Welcome Blanket makes space for these difficult conversations about immigration and contextualizes them with humanity. 

How It Works
Handcraft makers (knitters, sewers, quilters, crocheters, weavers, felters, etc.) are invited to make Welcome Blankets. The makers include notecards with stories important to their families about immigration, migration, or relocation to create symbolic and practical gifts of welcome for new refugees coming to the United States. These gifts are collected, cataloged, and displayed at art institutions.

Fourth-grade Welcome Blanket from Coolidge Corner School, Brookline, Massachusetts.

Since 2017, we have had twelve exhibitions to date, with six more being planned. During these exhibits, we create spaces to amplify the message of welcome by hosting craft circles, performances, discussions, forums, and legal assistance for immigrants. After each show’s close, our 30+ partner refugee resettlement groups present these tangible gifts of welcome to our newest neighbors.

Get Involved
Educators have embraced the project and incorporated Welcome Blanket in a myriad of ways. Welcome Blanket has been a part of learning units on craft, quilting, happiness, service, ethics, history, and civics. Students from second grade through college have taken part. Teachers have led the process of crafting blankets using knitting, crocheting, embroidery, quilting, and no-sew felting. The guidelines are simple: blankets should be 40 x 40” (101.5 x 101.5 cm), easy to care for and hard to give away. Some schools have put together their own Welcome Blanket exhibits to amplify the message of welcome. 

Something I’ve witnessed visiting classes engaged with the project is that it is a wonderful opportunity for students to connect their own family histories with people coming to the country now. 

I am interested in building a repository of pedagogical approaches to Welcome Blanket so that more educators can use it themselves. If you would like to get involved with your students, email me at hello@welcomeblanket.org and check out welcomeblanket.org and @welcomeblanket on Instagram.

Jayna Zweiman is the founder of Welcome Blanket. jayna@welcomeblanket.org