Thuis in Den Haag is a community art project by Haags Verhaal that explored what it means to feel “at home” in the city. Over the course of a year, the project travelled through all districts of The Hague and collected nearly a thousand personal reflections from residents. These reflections were not written in notebooks or recorded on audio, but stitched by hand onto small fabric squares.
The project used needle, thread and cloth as its main medium. Participants were given small white fabric pieces and red thread and were invited to embroider words, symbols, memories or feelings connected to the idea of “home”.
The Red Thread of Home
The core idea of the project was to find the “red thread” that connects people’s sense of home. This thread was both symbolic and literal: red embroidery thread was used to stitch the stories, creating a visual language of belonging.
The stitched pieces reflected deeply personal meanings. For some, home was connected to nature or the sea. For others, it meant family, pets, safety, language, childhood, or freedom. The project revealed that the same place can mean very different things to different people, and that the feeling of home is experienced in many forms.
The process of sewing itself played an important role. Embroidery is slow and deliberate, requiring time and attention. This created space for conversation and reflection. Many participants shared that they felt truly heard simply by being given the time and calm to tell their story while working with their hands.
Inspired by an International Community Art Practice
The project was inspired by an international community art initiative that used embroidery as a way to collect personal stories about home and belonging. Haags Verhaal adapted the concept specifically for The Hague, connecting it to the city’s diverse population and neighbourhoods.
During the project year, the team visited more than a hundred locations across the city, including libraries, community centres and neighbourhood spaces. People from all backgrounds were invited to participate, often assisted by volunteers and experienced embroiderers who helped translate words into stitched form.
The result was not one single artwork, but a growing, collective archive of stitched narratives.
A Mobile “House” Made of Stories
As the collection grew, the embroidered pieces were assembled into a mobile installation often referred to as a “house” of stories. This symbolic structure represented the idea of a shared home and travelled through the city alongside the project activities.
The house became a space for reflection, gathering and dialogue. It also showed how individual stories, when placed side by side, revealed both differences and surprising similarities in how people experience belonging.
From Project to Ongoing Presence
The official project period concluded in May, but the work has not disappeared. The embroidered stories and the installation continue to appear at public events and festivals, including recent appearances at the Haagse Stadmaker Festival yesterday.
A Social and Cultural Record of The Hague
Thuis in Den Haag functions both as an artwork and as a form of social documentation. It records how people in The Hague experience safety, loss, migration, memory and identity.
What makes the project distinctive is its use of textile and handwork as a storytelling tool. The act of sewing turns abstract ideas into physical traces. Every stitch becomes a record of a moment, a thought or a feeling.
By choosing fabric and thread instead of digital tools, the project slowed down the storytelling process and gave it a tactile, human quality.
A Living Collection
Though formally completed, the project continues to resonate. The stitched pieces now exist as a living collection that can be shown, revisited and expanded. It remains open to new contexts and new audiences.
Thuis in Den Haag shows how a simple act — threading a needle and stitching a few words, shapes or images — can create a powerful collective portrait of a city.
Magazine
In addition to the travelling installation, the project was documented in a comprehensive magazine that brings together the results of the work, which is free to download here
The publication includes:
• Background essays on the idea of home and belonging
• Reflections by participants from across the city
• Stories related to loneliness, migration, memory and identity
• Portraits and photographs of participants
• Photos of many of the embroidered fabric pieces
The magazine also documents notable moments during the project. One of these is the participation of Queen Máxima, who joined a sewing session at a public library in Ypenburg and embroidered a fabric piece herself.
For more
To read more about this project (in Dutch but with English translation possible on the website):
https://haagsverhaal.nl/thuis-in-den-haag/
Also browse the Haags Verhaal (The Hague Stories) website for more community projects that you can participate in:
https://haagsverhaal.nl/agenda/