Written by Sujata Noronha and Priya Naik
Historically, embroidery has been considered an unobtrusive and reticent medium tied to the female and domestic domain and that may explain why needle and thread are essential tools in Bookworm’s library practice for close to two decades.
However the Banyan Tree project that began almost ten years ago in conversation with textile artist Eleanor Viegas has been held and nurtured at The Peace Cottage, Betalbatim , Goa. It is in a post pandemic world and our embarking on opening a new community centre in Saligao that we decided to use The work – in progress mural as a prompt for us to re-cover our relationship with ourselves and with the space around Vinay & Jean Kalgutkar Community Centre.
We imagined a series of events around stitch recognising the use of embroidery as a mindful and immersive practice and one that enables collaboration and participation.
The table gives the details of the events held during the exhibition:
| Date | Event | No. of Participants |
| 17/02/2023 | Launch and opening lecture with Eleanor Viegas | 31 |
| 09/03/2023 | Visual Art session on Raza’s bindu by Sanika Dhakephalkar
Sketch and Stitch by Rhea D’Souza |
40 |
| 11/03/2023 | Drawing from Nature – Liz Kemp | 7 |
| 15/03/2023 | Information session – Snakes in Saligao – Clinton Fernandes | 7 |
| 18/03/2023 | Guided Stitch – Sujata | 10 |
Launch and Opening Lecture with Eleanor Viegas- 17/02/2023
The exhibit started with the ribbon cutting ceremony by Eleanor which was followed by the introduction of self and the project, story behind the project, interaction with all. Rhea and Sujata spoke about their connection with the Mural and Stitching. Sanika announced all the sessions happening through the banyan Tree Exhibit. After which a tour to the library was given and the launch ended with some refreshments. A group of 22 students along with their teacher Rahila Khan from Goa Polytechnic College, Richa with her family and the bookworm team were present for the opening of Banyan Tree Exhibition.
Raza’s Bindu by Sanika & Sketch and Stitch with Rhea- 09/03/2023
There were altogether 40 participants for this session. There were 35 LEC participants and 5 were the locals. The Participants were welcomed with a kokum drink. Sanika gave a library tour to the participants. They were happy to be in Saligao and to see the Banyan Tree exhibition. The participants made beautiful paintings with Sanika’s session on Raza’s Bindu . After her session all the paintings were displayed in the balcony and compound. The library looked bright and colourful with the paintings.
Sketch and Stitch with Rhea began with an explanation on the layers of nature and how to go about sketching. The participants were given 15 minutes to observe and begin. They were instructed to have seven elements which were explained by Rhea like background, one moving element etc. After sketching they had to colour, cut and Stitch. The outcome of the session was amazing.
Drawing From Nature with Liz Kemp- 11/03/2023
Drawing from Nature focused thoroughly examining nature. Liz opted to let the participants choose, examine, and sketch out the object. She took them out and each one of them chose a leaf that they wanted to study in detail and doodle on the sheet of paper. Next, using the large sheet, they all sketched leaves on the ground. There was concentration, discussion, and also an inquiry about art and art technique with Liz. The idea of capturing the leaf so closely was nice. Everyone drew their leaves with different colours. 
Snakes in Saligao with Clinton- 15/03/2023
The session began with the introduction of the Resource Person – Clinton with Alfred who introduced themselves. They had this beautiful presentation on snakes that are rarely found in Saligao. They mentioned and listed some common ones with pictures (most of which they had clicked during rescues at different places), even guided and informed about how important it is to identify the types. They presented the slides on how to distinguish venomous and non-venomous snakes, shared some incidents about snake bites, myths and truths about them. They also gave prevention and precautionary tips to be followed. One thing which they suggested and insisted the participants follow in the event of snake-bite is R.I.G.H.T.
Reassure
Immobilise the bitten limb
Go to
Hospital
Tell the doctor
The session ended with questions from the participants and they answered the questions.
Guided Stitch with Sujata- 18/03/2023
The session began with the explanation of breaking form and boundary ideas and what a Guided Stitch may be like by Sujata. Sujata then read the poem. The participants had to close their eyes and listen to the poem and draw the picture they imagined while they were listening to the poem. After they drew their poem on the fabric, they had to stitch the drawing. They used colourful threads to show their stitches on the fabric. It was simple, charming, lovely and energising. 
During the entire exhibition we had many visitors, some came specially to see the Banyan Tree Mural and some to look around the library.
- Mr. & Mrs. Dhakephalkar visited on 18th February.They were mesmerised to see the huge stitching on the wall.
- Alka Tandon and Renuka Mendes visited specially to see the Banyan Tree exhibition which they came to know through our Instagram post.
- Geeta Bhasin came to drop off the pieces she took during serendipity, and took two new ones for her mother. Her mother is in love with stitching these pieces.
- Aaliyah (member) and Felomena (non member) were regular in their stitching. They kept us updating about their work, exact thread colours, and type of stitches.
- Megha, our LEC Resource Person, asked for a piece to do stitching. She was so excited that within no time she asked for thread and needle. After a few minutes we saw her in a corner sitting on the floor with much of her stitches done.
- Zara (who was a non member during that time) was so excited to learn stitching only by looking at the Banyan Tree stitches.She is a seven year old child. She was introduced to materials that are used in stitching like different types of needles, multicoloured threads, and pins. She was also instructed to be very careful while stitching.
Overall the library had more visitors during the Banyan Tree Exhibition.
We were happy to note that the participatory practice of hand stitching had a strong collective and social dimension, which is one of the two fundamental understandings of participation that we hold high in our library practice.
