The “Textile Transmissions” project builds links between young creators and nursing home residents around sewing and memory workshops. An intergenerational experience where art becomes a vector of inclusion and sharing.
“What if a thread could connect generations?” The Transmissions Textiles project takes up this challenge by bringing together young creatives and nursing home residents around an original artistic and human experience. Supported by the Collectif Rencontre (S), in partnership with the Edenis associative group, and accompanied by the upcycled fashion designer Naco Paris, this initiative is deployed over a year through workshops combining textile creation, theater and transmission of memory.
Creation as a pretext
The originality of the project is based on the meeting of two audiences that everything seems to oppose, but that creation brings together: young people in difficulty, mainly from working-class neighborhoods, and elderly people living in establishments. Gathered in pairs, they participate in weekly workshops, where the human exchange counts as much as the object created.
Last Thursday, at the Caroline-Baron nursing home, five pairs finalized their creations during their tenth workshop. Anne-Marie, 90, and Anna, 21, chose to celebrate spring with a scarf decorated with flowers and pearls. “If I’m here, it’s above all to get out of isolation,” confides Anne-Marie.
Chantal, 82, a former literature teacher, and Baptiste, 26, imagined a starry night on a black scarf. “It allows me to escape from monotony,” explains Chantal. For Baptiste, enriching exchanges: “We talk about books and nature, a subject that brings us together.”
Beyond the artistic aspect, the objective of this partnership is to promote the integration of young talents, to break the isolation of seniors, to give older people a central place in society, and as Muriel Amillhat Guelfi, from the Edenis group, points out, “to open the nursing home to the outside world, to give it a breath of fresh air”.
A project born from an inspiring meeting
At the origin of this collaboration, a beautiful meeting. “In 2025, as part of the Oli Imaginary Museum, we were chosen by the Musée des Abattoirs and the artist Oli, for a live creation of an upcycled collection. During their visit, the residents of the Caroline-Baron Ehpad showed a keen interest in the work of young creatives. This is where Transmissions Textiles was born”, says Anne Péchoux, coordinator of the Collectif Rencontre (S). After Caroline-Baron, the project will continue at the Cartoucherie, then at the Jardins de Maniban in Blagnac, before a final restitution with exhibition of the creations, photographic portraits and video projection.
