“Threads of Grief, Threads of Love” is the current show at Resource Center for Nonviolence made up of 36 handmade quilts that honor 722 infants killed in Gaza before their first birthday.
A community gathering was held May 29 to kick off the exhibit, spearheaded by Unhae Landis, where a panel of five speakers addressed the Gaza war.
The panelists were Palestinian writer, playwright and podcaster Mo Sati, along with Rolla Alaydi, a Monterey County educator who has lost 215 family members. Also included were Lebanese artist and educator Rami Chahine and Unhae Langis, a quilter, writer and community organizer. Multidisciplinary artist Maha Taitano Chamoru-Iraqi also joined the panel.
“My family has been displaced again and again, over and over and their homes destroyed in Gaza,” Alaydi told the sword of around 50 people. “Now they search for food and water that does not exist. [The quilts] “are lives, they are dreams, they are threads woven into the fabric of humanity, and as long as we continue to speak their names and tell their stories those threads will not be broken.”
Twenty-eight quilters pooled their skills, both locally and from around the state, to create the 36 baby quilts, each including around 20 infant names in the design.
The exhibit stems from the initial quilt project of September 2025 titled “Know their names; Babies in Gaza Who Never Made It To Their First Birthday” that was the brainchild of Elizabeth Wiliams and Sarah Ringler who were inspired by the AIDS Quilt of 1985.
The poster for the show reads, “Each name is a whole world: a child who was held, awaited, dreamed over. Each one was killed with weapons our government helped supply. Each stitch holds grief, remorse, and recognition of our shared humanity.”
The show runs through July 31 at 612 Ocean St., Santa Cruz.
