Woven and Wistful by Timour Screve

Hi, I’m Neelam. And I’m Timour. Together, we are excited to present to you this one-of-a-kind information embroidery commission. It combines information design (timour’s expertise) and visual art/embroidery (Neelam’s) and a deeply personal and yet universal experience of longing and community.

(timour) This project represents the everlasting presence my family and I have in each other’s lives regardless of distance while simultaneously communicating the ghostly absence and toll it takes to not be near your family or home.

The concept started as a floral triptych embroidery that functioned as a set and as individuals, for each of the three embroideries would live in different homes across the globe. I intended for it to be a Christmas gift, a heartfelt and meaningful moment for my mother, sister and I.

And moved by Shirley Wu’s words at last year fireside chat, about the need to bring information design out of its niche and to build bridges with other forms of arts, I reached out to a close friend, who’s talent and creativeness I have long admired.

(neelam) Art is a Verb almost never creates the human form, but this is my version of a Family Portrait. I sketched a design that involved the favourite flowers of all three people and proposed a top down view of thistles, sweet peas, and bleeding hearts, all in the same composition but each piece only having one fully realized flower, the rest an outline in shimmering thread. As a set, the delicate vines reach toward one another and almost touch.

When I shared the completed work, a waterfall of feedback came in on how touching the concept and execution of the art work was. The subject matter resonated with so many other individuals far from their families for all sorts of reasons. I even received interest for tattoo designs and other custom embroideries to make more of those unique Family Portrait Bouquets.

(together) Ultimately, this is a project rooted in community and the feelings it can manifest with/in us. From the emptiness we experience in its absence, to the joy and creativity that emerges in its presence. These three, unique pieces will last forever and the lack of words and numbers in them only add to their ability to transcend time, languages and cultures.

Now, they live as individual embroideries, beautiful and growing standing on their own, but forever knowing they are one of three in a set.