Touring exhibition curated by Day + Gluckman
The Exchange, Penzance, Cornwall, 22 October 2016 – 7 January 2017
Collyer Bristow Gallery, 4 Bedford Row, London WC1, 2 July – 21 October 2015

Mad Mother, 2015, machine and hand knitted wool, 2300 × 1520 × 20 mm

Bad Mother, 2013, machine knitted wool, machine knitted lurex, expanding foam, knitting needles, glass beads, sequins, dress pins, crystal beads on maple wood shelf, 780 × 160 × 160 mm. Private Collection

Liberties, an exhibition of contemporary art reflecting on 40 years since the Sex Discrimination Act.

Works by over 20 women artists will reflect the changes in art practice within the context of sexual and gender equality since the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act (1975) in the UK. Some artists confront issues that galvanised the change in law whilst others carved their own place in a complex and male dominated art world. From the radical movements of the 1960s and 70s, the politics of the 80s, the boom of lad culture in the 1990s to the current fourth wave of feminism, encouraged largely through and because of social media, all of the artists’ question equality and identity in very different ways.

The exhibition presents a snapshot of the evolving conversations that continue to contribute to the mapping of a woman’s place in British society. Body, femininity, sex, motherhood, economic and political status are explored through film, photography, sculpture, performance and painting.

Exhibiting alongside: Guler Ates, Helen Barff, Sutapa Biswas, Sonia Boyce, Jemima Burrill, Helen Chadwick, Sarah Duffy, Rose English, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Alison Gill, Helena Goldwater, Joy Gregory, Margaret Harrison, Alexis Hunter, Frances Kearney, EJ Major, Eleanor Moreton, Hayley Newman, Monica Ross, Jo Spence, Jessica Voorsanger, Alice May Williams and Carey Young.

Liberties is part of A Woman’s Place project curated by Day + Gluckman
awomansplace.org.uk/liberties-london
awomansplace.org.uk/liberties-cornwall

Photography: Stephanie Rushton

Basketcase, 2015, machine knitted wool, crocheted lurex, wicker basket,
260 × 520 × 260 mm

Photography: Douglas Atfield

Curated by David Littler
Cecil Sharp House – the north London home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) – Camden, London NW1
15 May – 25 September 2014

Collection of Knitted Folk Objects – Pocky, 2014, machine knitted wool, reclaimed knitting needles, 700 × 400 × 120 mm

Collection of Knitted Folk Objects – Cecil, 2014, machine knitted wool, reclaimed knitting needles, wood, 240 × 100 × 1220 mm

Collection of Knitted Folk Objects – Mither, 2014, machine knitted wool, reclaimed wooden walking stick with metal badges, stones, 1050 × 160 × 100 mm. Private Collection

Collection of Knitted Folk Objects – Walkin-Stick, 2014, machine knitted wool, reclaimed bamboo walking stick, rubber ferrule, expanding foam

Collection of Knitted Folk Objects – Old Nanny Witch , 2014, machine knitted wool, reclaimed wooden walking stick, stones, ribbon, kilt pin, 500 × 100 × 980 mm. Private Collection

Yan Tan Tethera – which is a traditional sheep counting system used predominantly in the north of England as well as a way to count stitches in knitting – explores, shares and brings to life some of the songs and dances that have eminated from, and been inspired by, England’s textiles industry. 

Spanning five months, the wider Yan Tan Tethera project, a season of performances, events, workshops and exhibition, takes over Cecil Sharp House and spills into the local Camden area.

Freddie Robins’s finished works are heavily influenced by the old children’s rhyme, “Tell-tale tit”. It is the ultimate playground insult, you have a disabled father who cannot walk, even with a walking stick, and a mother who cannot knit!

“Tell-tale tit, yer mither cannae knit,
Yer father cannae walk wi a walkin-stick.”

Cabinet of Textile Folk Curiosities, 2014
“The Cabinet of Textile Folk Curiosities contain an eclectic and idiosyncratic collection of objects and research relating to songs and dances found in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library here at Cecil Sharp House, the Full English Digital Archives and beyond. The main focus of my research has been around the theme of knitting but has also gone on to encompass the broader subject of textiles, fibre and textile production. My research has also strayed into other areas of personal interest; my home village of Rottingdean in East Sussex, (also home to the famous Copper Family), the much maligned county of Essex where I now live, places that I have visited and to where I have an emotional bond, witches and witchcraft and the sensational murders immortalized in the popular Broadside Ballads. My research, love of wooden soled footwear and desire to spend more time immersed in the activities of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) at Cecil Sharp House has also seen me start clog dancing classes with Camden Clog.”

The other Yan Tan Tethera artists are Shane Waltener, Prick Your Finger (Rachael Matthews), Stewart Easton, Celia Ward, the McGrath Makers’ Group, and artists from the collective sampler-cultureclash – Jason Singh, Hector MacInnes, Anne Martin and Aimee Leonard.

Yan Tan Tethera is curated by David Littler, promoted by the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) and supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Yan Tan Tethera on film
Filmed and edited by Roswitha Chesher

Studio photography: Douglas Atfield

textilefolksong.co.uk

Installed at PM Gallery & House, London
2008
Antique mirror, mixed media

Last year my parents-in-law found a young, female woodpecker lying dead in an empty bedroom. It had pecked at it’s own reflection and at the wood veneer of the dressing table mirror, dying from exhaustion and hunger. Some years earlier a young woman had fallen from the roof terrace of the flat above ours, landing in front of our basement door. She died on impact.

The form of this piece is also a tribute to the Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter (1835 – 1918). Potter produced many taxidermy tableaux including the infamous “Kitten’s Wedding” and “Who Killed Cock Robin?” As a child my parents often took me to his museum, in Brighton, and then Arundel, East Sussex. His museum has had an enormous influence on me. It is one of my most powerful childhood memories. The museum was eventually bought by Jamaica Inn in Cornwall. In 2003 the entire contents of the museum were auctioned. I now own his two-headed lamb from 1887.

Research project funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Royal College of Art Development Fund (RCA).

The Perfect – Alex, 2007
machine knitted wool and acrylic yarn 

580 × 920 mm

The Perfect – Eddie, 2007

machine knitted wool and acrylic yarn

450 × 240 mm


In the collection of Spring Studios, London

The Perfect – Billy
, 2007

machine knitted wool and acrylic yarn

450 × 240 mm
In the collection of Spring Studios, London

The Perfect – Tilak, 
2007

machine knitted wool and acrylic yarn

1400 × 1050 mm


The Perfect, 2007
machine knitted wool 

Dimensions variable 


Installed at KODE – kunstmuseene i Bergen, Norway

The Perfect Skins, 2007
machine knitted wool, metal rail
1800 × 800 × 100 mm

“It’s not perfect, but who cares?” Well I do. I enjoy imperfection in you and yours but not in me and mine. I am very attracted to the imperfections, failings, and roughness of the material world. I enjoy the evidence of human hands, the inevitable wear and repair of objects. I love the obviously hand-made. But I suffer from being a perfectionist.  

This body of work deals with the constant drive for perfection. It is made using technology that was developed to achieve perfection. Technology developed for mass production to make garment multiples that are exactly the same as each other: garments that do not require any hand finishing, garments whose manufacture does not produce any waste, garments whose production does not require the human touch. Garments that are, in fact, perfect.

I have produced my knitted multiples through the use of a Shima Seiki WholeGarment® machine (a computerised, automated, industrial V-bed flat machine, which is capable of knitting a three-dimensional seamless garment). These multiples take the form of life size, three-dimensional human bodies. I have combined them in a variety of different ways to create large-scale knitted sculptures and installations.
Perfectionism is associated with good craftsmanship, something to aspire to. I aim for perfection in all aspects of my life, my work and myself. It can be very debilitating and exhausting and it is of course, unachievable.

Photography: Damian Chapman, Douglas Atfield, Ben Coode-Adams