"Threads, a major exhibition featuring 21 contemporary international artists and makers, who use textiles as their chosen medium, co - curated by Alice Kettle.

Celebrating material and making, these artists use the storytelling power of textiles to connect with past traditions, find commonalities between cultures, time and place, and to ‘breathe stories into materials’.

Threads encompasses processes of weaving and spinning, rug-making, stitching and embroidery, print, knit, threading, mending and found materials, with materials and techniques handed down, reused and reinvented.

Co-curated by leading textile artist Alice Kettle, Threads weaves throughout Arnolfini’s three floors, to reveal how textiles ‘remember’***, how memory is ‘embedded within the process of making’*** and how new narratives are created." Arnolfini. 

The work featured by Alice Kettle is Ground, (seen above) a vast seminal work of 8 metres wide, part of her solo project Thread Bearing Witness shown at The Whitworth, Manchester in 2018. Working with communities and individuals Alice collaborated with expert stitchers from around the world in the development of the world. Individuals from Syria, Iran, Pakistan and Uganda contribute to the hand stitching found on these drawn portraits by Alice. She wishes to acknowledge the importance of their input.