Festival of Quilts: A Stitch for Every Sound

In April 2022 I collaborated with the sound artist and musician Gavin Osborn in the development of co-produced research which considers how listening can be affective knowledge for the embroiderer and how embroidery influences an auditory perception of place. Using our two distinct artistic disciplines, we have been testing the versatility of a sound and stitched-based exchange through the creation of embroidered and musical compositions.
Gavin’s on-site sound recordings have been sourced from liminal sites around the National Exhibition Centre. In turn, Gavin captures the discreet soundscape of my embroidery – using highly sensitive recording devices to detect the sonic textures in the moment of stitchery. The subsequent layering of sound and embroidered fragments presents an intricate interplay between the graphic form and poetic language of embroidery within the acoustic structures of sound-based work. The creative oscillations between sound, stitchery and site-specificity playfully honour traditions of collective textile making to inspire thoughts about textiles metaphoric potential when fragments of haptic experience are pieced together using the process of attentive listening.
The outcomes of our research were presented at the Festival of the Quilts 2022, NEC, Birmingham with support from the University of Huddersfield’s partnership award for co-produced research.