“Clothing carries traces of the people who wear it—their lives, identities, memories, and journeys.

In Folded Stories, I carve garments from wood and fold them as one might fold clothes into a suitcase when leaving one place for another.

The folded shirt becomes a metaphor for carrying one's story across borders. When we migrate, we may leave behind a home, familiar surroundings, and parts of a life, but we carry fragments of that life with us. Clothes become quiet witnesses to these journeys—personal objects that hold memory even when everything else has changed.

Each carved shirt is distinct in its form, design, texture, and detail, reflecting the diversity of people, cultures, places, and individual stories. Together, the garments suggest that no two journeys are the same, even when the experience of leaving and beginning again is shared.

Folded Stories is ultimately about what we carry when we move—not only what can fit inside a suitcase, but the memories, identities, relationships, and stories that travel with us.”

-Humaira Abid