Artist Sydney Shadeck-Triola began a quilting movement named An Inch for Each of the Dead to visualize the death toll of Palestinians at the ongoing genocide enacted by Israel. The project aims to understand, communicate, mourn and advocate against the genocide by inviting artists from around the world to make blocks of fabric that then become part of the quilt. Each block, measuring an inch by an inch, represents the death of a single person. Now, over a year after the genocide first escalated on October 2023, the quilt has come to represent around 44,000 deaths, with over 220 artists contributing to the project.
”Did you know that if you try to make a quilt with one square inch for every person that has been killed in Palestine in the last year, at some point that quilt will start to feel a lot like a body,” says Shadeck-Triola when reflecting on her project. Hence, An Inch for Each of the Dead becomes a powerful visual and visceral call to action for the world to do what it can to help stop the genocide in Palestine. This is why An Inch for Each of the Dead by Sydney Shadeck-Triola is relevant to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.
To make the ongoing quilt, Shadeck-Triola created an open call on the project’s Instagram page where anyone interested in contributing can send her a batch of 100 square inches of quilted cubes. These sheets of quilts often come with handwritten notes, heartfelt thoughts and reflections from the participating artists who are all universally calling for a ceasefire in Palestine.
One piece from contributing artist Sam (@sniparoundandfindout) is accompanied by a note about how they had carefully quilted old fabric with their own memories attached to them. This means preferring to use their grandmother’s old bed sheets, an indigo fabric they had dyed with their friend or a dear thrifted tablecloth that had been with them for over a decade. “Something felt wrong about using fabric I didn’t have a strong connection to, it felt more genuine for the materials of this block to be infused with personal meaning, making it less about surface level aesthetic choices, and more about being an authentic part of creatively expressing protest and grief,” wrote Sam.
Sydney Shadeck-Triola’s An Inch for Each of the Dead is a powerful, collective expression of grief, solidarity and protest against the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Each inch-by-inch quilted block represents a life lost, visually capturing the scale of this tragedy while honouring individual lives. With contributions from over 220 artists worldwide, the project turns a simple quilt into a profound call to action, symbolizing the urgent need for peace and justice. The movement encourages global recognition and response to this humanitarian crisis since, as Lizi Breit (@lizibreit), a contributing artist puts it, “I could tell you a story about each of these scraps of fabric. Every person is a whole entire universe."
Find out more about An Inch for Each of the Dead by Sydney Shadeck-Triola on their Instagram @aninchforeach.