2020-2021 - Gatty’s Gift: A Centenary of Colour and Community. Supported by National Lottery Heritage fund for Community Solutions North West. A project exploring through research, oral histories, creative interpretation and an exhibition
2020 - Bradford Covid-19 Stitch Journal project. Supported by Bradford Metropolitan District Council. An online project working with 30 women who explored their experience of the first UK lockdown through conversation and stitch.
2019 Mr Gatty’s Experiment Shed supported by Arts Council England and part of the first British Textile Biennale An installation exploring the layered histories of a former industrial site in Accrington, East Lancashire, the purpose built ‘experiment shed’ of F.A Gatty, 19th century textile industrialist and dye innovator.
In the bicentenary year of Gatty’s birth this interdisciplinary work, created through an authentic engagement and co-production process with local residents, produced an installation in this unique space. It allowed a re-imagining of the physical ephemera of the industry and the raw materials that drove it. A focus on the heritage of the madder plant, slow growing, entangled and embedded in the place added to the sensory experience.
2016 - 2020 Local Colour. Artist residency commissioned by Super Slow Way based at Elmfield Hall, Church, East Lancashire, former home of Frederick Albert Gatty, textile dyeing industrialist who specialised in Turkey red dyeing and printing processes. The site is now the base for a social enterprise, Community Solutions North West. Videos here and here.
2017-2018 Worn Stories: Material and Memory in Bradford 1880-2015 funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund for Hive. Exploring the heritage of textile reuse and repair in Bradford (industrial and domestic), through creative community engagement, archive research and oral history recording. A publication about this project is available as a PDF please contact me for more details.
2015-2016 Collection Stories. Artist residency at Gawthorpe Textile Collection.
2015 Sewing Seeds Funded by the Ashley Family Foundation. This community-based textile project used printed textile archive inspiration and local colour produced in a community dye plant garden. Participants worked on a collaborative collection of printed textiles to be used in other community projects.
2012- 2015 The Fabric of Bradford funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund for Hive, a community arts organisation based in Bradford. The Fabric of Bradford explored the rich textile dyeing heritage of the city through community based activities, archive-based research and the creation of dye plant gardens. Video here.
2013 Crysalis - The Revival of Textiles, Plymouth College of Art. Working with participants from across the European Union exploring traditional dyeing processes and considerations around sustainable production and wellbeing.
2010-2013 Out There Funded by Mind / Big Lottery Fund for Hive this project worked across Bradford and District. With a focus on wellbeing and better mental health, I co-ordinated projects that created links between local green spaces and creative activity. Several 'seed to fabric' projects were included, with participants starting dye plant plots and experiencing a 'whole process' method of working with natural materials. Video here.
2006-7 - A Healing Environment - Kings Fund, Humber Mental Health NHS Trust. Working with mental health service users and clinical staff to produce textile work to enhance in-patient psychiatric facilities at two hospitals in Hull and Goole, East Yorkshire.