micro/MACRO Textiles - Dorothy Burge: STITCHING TOGETHER

STITCHING TOGETHER

A Community Quilt Gathering with

Ms. Dorothy Burge

---

Quilting Memory, Resistance, Joy, and

Community Into Action.

---

Saturday, October 3, 2026 | 10:30 AM - 2:30 PM

SAIC Sharp Building | 37 S. Wabash Ave.

3rd Floor, Room 327

Come sit, stitch, listen, talk, remember, imagine, and make with us.

Bring a piece of fabric. Bring a story. Bring something you want remembered.

RESERVE YOUR PLACE →

Come make a square. Add your voice. Help us stitch a community.

On October 3, we are gathering around the quilt with Ms. Dorothy Burge. Join the micro/MACRO Textiles community for a free day of stitching, storytelling, conversation, and collective making with the celebrated Chicago artist, activist, organizer, and quilter.

Ms. Dorothy has spent decades showing how cloth can carry history, confront injustice, honor lives, hold memory, and bring people together. Her mission is simple and powerful: “to inspire generations to action.”

Together, we will make individual quilt squares from fabric, appliqué, words, hand stitching, and machine sewing. Your square might carry a memory, a name, a question, a demand, a hope, a celebration, or a call to action. It does not need to look like anyone else’s. The power comes when all of these individual voices begin to sit beside one another. Her quilts do not only ask us to remember injustice. They celebrate survival, resistance, freedom, Black history, community, and joy.

About Ms. Dorothy

Dorothy Burge is a Chicago artist, activist, organizer, and self-described quiltivist who believes quilts can do more than hang on a wall. They can remember. They can teach. They can protest. They can honor. They can gather people together. And they can move us toward action.

Coming from generations of Black quilters from Mississippi and Louisiana, Ms. Dorothy uses fabric, portraiture, words, and stitching to connect personal memory with larger histories of resistance and freedom. Her work has addressed Black history, racial violence, incarceration, wrongful conviction, police torture, mourning, survival, freedom, and joy.

For Ms. Dorothy, making and organizing belong together. As she has said, “My mission is to inspire generations to action.” Her quilts ask us not only to look, but to remember, question, speak, and participate.

Stitch with us. Then see the quilts together.

Stitching Together happens during a remarkable weekend for Ms. Dorothy in Chicago.

The day before our gathering, "FREEDOM FIGHTERS: Dorothy I. Burge" opens at the Chicago Cultural Center. The exhibition honors Black veteran freedom fighters and traces histories of military service, abolition, civil rights, antiwar organizing, resistance, and freedom.

After we finish stitching at SAIC, we invite everyone to walk over to the Cultural Center together, where Ms. Dorothy will lead us through FREEDOM FIGHTERS herself.

A quilt begins with pieces. So does a community.

We hope you will bring yours.

Dorothy I. Burge, from FREEDOM FIGHTERS.

What might your square say?

There is no single theme you need to follow. You might remember someone. Celebrate someone. Name an injustice. Honor a place. Carry a family story. Make a demand. Stitch a word. Share a hope. Make something funny, tender, angry, beautiful, unfinished, or difficult to explain.

There is no right square. Bring what matters to you.

What happens to the squares?

Each quilt square will be photographed during the gathering and documented in the micro/MACRO Textiles project archive, where the pieces and the stories they carry can continue to be shared. We also hope to bring the squares together again in a future exhibition and are currently exploring possible venues.

What to expect

Sewing machines and shared equipment
Hand-sewing and quilting supplies
Fabric and appliqué materials
Scissors, thread, and tools
Space for conversation, learning, and making
Lunch and refreshments will be provided

What to bring

If you can, bring a piece of fabric that means something to you. If your fabric has a story, we hope you’ll share it. If it doesn’t, that’s okay too.

It can be old or new, precious or ordinary, printed or plain. You might bring a scrap from home, part of an old garment, leftover material from another project, or simply a fabric whose color or texture helps you say what you want your square to say.

You do not need to bring tools or have previous sewing experience. We will have materials and support available.

Event information

STITCHING TOGETHER: A Community Quilt Gathering with Ms. Dorothy Burge

Saturday, October 3, 2026 | 10:30 AM - 2:30 PM

School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Sharp Building

37 S. Wabash Ave., 3rd Floor, Room 327

After we finish stitching at SAIC, we invite everyone to walk over to the Cultural Center together for an exhibition walk-through of "FREEDOM FIGHTERS: Dorothy I. Burge."

Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St., Grand Army of the Republic Hall, 2nd Floor North.

2:30 PM: We will leave SAIC together and walk to the Chicago Cultural Center for an optional exhibition walk-through with Ms. Dorothy.

Walk-through approximately 2:45–3:30 PM.

Free and open to the public. All experience levels welcome. No sewing experience required. Please bring a photo ID for check-in at the Sharp Building security desk.

Stay for the whole gathering or join us for part of the day.

Persons with disabilities requesting accommodations should visit saic.edu/access.

Advance registration is encouraged. Drop-ins are welcome as space allows.

Stevie Wonder, 2026,

Dorothy I. Burge

Organized by the micro/MACRO Textiles seminar student cohort, with support from the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Banner image: micro/MACRO Textiles Seminar, Quilts of Resistance and Survival with Ms. Dorothy Burge, 28th of March 2026 with (from left to right) Tommy Ballard (TA), MFA 2026; Mhari Wardrop, BFA 2026; Juliana Scalise, BFA 2026; Ms. Dorothy; Adilah Muhammad, MFA 2028; Kae Washington, BFA 2026; Nia Wilson, MFA 2027; Talia Newman, MFA 2026; Elisa Ho, MFA 2028; Micah Shaffer, MDes 2026.