Common Threads Press

Sunday, May 17, 12PM-1:15PM
Roundhouse Performance Centre

Bringing together local and international practitioners working across publishing, visual art, activism, public art, and craft, this panel explores publishing as a mode of creative resistance. With particular focus on the economic and cultural conditions that perpetuate artistic precarity, speakers explore the possibilities of art and publishing to nurture radical action, levity, and fruitful reorientations in our current era.

Produced in partnership with the Burnaby Art Gallery and the Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum

NEW: We Will Find Them: Arpilleras and the Political Art of Chile Under Pinochet

In the shadow of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, resistance in Chile took many forms — including quiet stitches by hand. We Will Find Them: Arpilleras and the Political Art of Chile Under Pinochet reveals the remarkable story of the arpilleristas: groups of women who transformed burlap or hessian cloth into vivid scenes of protest, community and hope.

Featuring a selection of arpilleras that have been newly discovered, photographed and published here for the first time, alongside works held in national collections, We Will Find Them offers an intimate glimpse into the creativity and courage of Chilean makers.

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Fundraising

Fundraising for charities and community groups through our publications, prints and collaborations is something we're most proud of.

£1772 for the Navajo Quilt Project ~ £606 for The Outside Project ~ £468 for the Black Art Library ~ £133 for Leeway Domestic Abuse Services ~ £692.50 for Norwich Trans Pride ~ £1307 for Medical Aid for Palestinians ~ £1940 for Palestine Red Crescent Society

Testimonials

Each new book from Common Threads Press is cause for celebration.
We are talking about something more than simply informational books, we are talking about a mission-based publisher establishing space for people to make and create, and essentially a furtherance of culture, collaboration and creative work. It is thrilling to see this all emerging from the UK and long may it continue.
Simon Armstrong, Head of Book Sales & Buying at Tate Shops

Common Threads Press craft sharply focused, deeply researched and intimately felt publications that offer rich insights into the often overlooked yet urgent narratives that textiles can reveal. Their beautiful books speak to the histories of power, poetic possibilities and political potential held in fibre and thread; they have offered me inspiration and joy in equal measure.
Lotte Johnson, curator of 'Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art'

Common Threads Press publications are brilliant: accessible, informative, powerful.
They bring to the fore the universal human stories told by textiles and their making, underscoring the intimate and political power of fabric.
Rachel Dedman, Jameel Curator of Contemporary Art from the Middle East at the V&A, curator of 'Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery'.

I am such a huge fan of Common Threads Press, who offer a vibrant and vital platform to craft stories that have often been neglected from wider histories. Beautifully produced and exacting in research, these publications show that as with everything, the history of craft is deeply political.
Amber Butchart, curator, writer and history consultant for BBC One's Great British Sewing Bee.

Diasporic Threads platforms a stunning selection of works by contemporary Black women textile artists and is rich in critical insight and historical context.
Ferren Gipson, author of Women's Work: From Feminine Arts to Feminist Arts and The Ultimate Art Museum.

NEW: All Ah We is One: Caribbean Carnival Costume

Caribbean Carnivals have been taking place around the UK since 1959. These joyous celebrations of culture and community began as acts of resistance in the face of enslavement — a defiant stand from communities who refused to lose who they were and where they came from.

Drawing from this rich and radical history, Aisling Serrant explores Carnival through one of its most vibrant and unmissable features: costume. First turned to by former slaves in the Caribbean as an act of reclamation and quiet resistance, with roots in West African and European masquerade alike, the colourful costumes of Carnival weekend remain a vital mode of self-expression, protest, and camaraderie. From Canboulay to Leeds and Notting Hill, the costume makers, wearers, and the communities they attract, embody Carnival in the spirit of an expression used across the Caribbean to signify unity among nations and peoples: all ah we is one.

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