An invigorating survey of Black women textile artists, celebrating their vital contributions to cultural and social histories through fibre-related mediums.
An invigorating survey of Black women textile artists, celebrating their vital contributions to cultural and social histories through fibre-related mediums.
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Diasporic Threads: Black Women, Fibre and Textiles (Revised Edition)
An invigorating survey of Black women textile artists, celebrating their vital contributions to cultural and social histories through fibre-related mediums.
Historically ignored or overlooked in surveys of art history, Black women artists that work in fibre and textiles have often been further neglected – their artworks reduced to hobby or handiwork without proper consideration to their deeper significance. From rug-making and hand-felting to computational textiles, the work of seven contemporary artists offers a remedy. Explored through a series of interviews, Diasporic Threads collates their diverse practice in a potent reminder that anti-Blackness and misogynoir are global issues, contested and resisted at the intersections of race, art, and cultural memory.
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: Softness: A Meditation on Knitting
Unravelling the semantics of the ugly jumper, the ratty cardigan and the squishy mittens.
Softness is a poetic reflection on hand-knitting and the neglected objects that give us nourishment. A straggly jumper, shrunken in a hot wash. A frayed sleeve, mended with different wool. A garish sweater, coffee-stained but decidedly unwashed, sent by a loved one to withstand the cold winters.
Punctuated by short key texts from textile studies and feminist theory, Softness tugs at the loose threads of this corner of craft history. This is an ode to the disrepaired, a plea to stem the tide of unloved, mass-produced clothing by rethinking the power of soft things.
