We recently visited Alice Kettle’s exhibition Thread Bearing Witness. This particular exhibition resonated with the Shelanu group as it highlighted themes of culture, heritage and journeys. Inspired by refugee displacement and movement, the large scale pieces incorporate stitch to convey these ideas of migration.

The exhibition also included the Stitch a Tree project, which invited participants to stitch their own tree to add to a large embroidery work, ‘Forest’. The project was showing support for displaced people around the world and aimed  to connect communities and create a sense of belonging and achievement. The group were excited to search the artwork for their individual stitched trees that they created last year, and were happy when they did eventually spot them!

Here are some thoughts from the members:

Ruth: Beautiful work, nice. Clever, people come look at the work and understand people’s suffering.

Amy: Love the colour, it’s strong catches your eye. Very well made. Good from a distance but when you go in close you can see the quality. The pieces moved her.

Shelan: Lots of birds and when people putting birds in I think about freedom, flying, different cultures. Also liked the group work, “When you are working with other groups you can learn from them.”

Kiki: stitch a tree like a forest! So many pieces. Makes you think about all the choices you have in life, not everyone so lucky to have a choice.

Emmeline: Liked the different ideas/representations of trees. Reflects on what people like in life, what’s important to them e.g. Kiki Chinese trees, Yeelah, holidays. All the different trees show different cultures/experiences.

Yeelah: The size and scale of work makes you consider the big picture and everyone in the world, the part you have to play.

Manchester Craft and Design Centre

As well as attending The Whitworth Gallery, Shelanu also visited the Manchester Craft and Design Centre, talking to makers in their studios and exploring and learning about new techniques and materials.

Having worked with enamel before, the group were particularly interested in Liliana Mandziuk-Slezak’s work. Combining resins, enamels and a variety of metals to achieve a high quality piece inspired the group of what they can achieve with refining of their own jewellery work.

They were also keen to experiment with new processes, being influenced by Gemma Truman’s glass pieces, they began thinking of how they could use coloured translucent polymer clay to replicate the aesthetic.

Previous origami projects by the group led them to be fascinated by Kate Kelly’s sculptural, large scale pieces.

Following on from the theme of Alice Kettle’s exhibition, Clare Hillerby’s work using maps and found objects sparked the interest of Shelanu, as the objects could reflect people’s heritage and journeys.

The unique use of thread incorporated with timber throughout Jane Blease’s work also caught the attention of Shelanu.