Phantom Threads

An exhibition focused on artists and makers working with textile practices — exploring how craft carries traces of labour, care, gender, and memory through everyday making.

Curators

Kaia Brushaber is an American-born curator and multi-disciplinary artist with an interest in craftivism and a background in accessible art and creation, facilitated through her work with the Pelican Project in Exeter.

Liv Pattimore is a British curator and artist with an interest in fibre arts, queerness, and digital culture.

Moyan Zhang is a curator and designer from Qingdao province in China with an interest in multicultural curation and creative sensory expression.

Artists

Gwen Larson is an American-based fibre artist, and also the mother of exhibited artist Amy Brushaber.

Amy Brushaber is an American-based quilter and paper artist, as well as the mother of curator Kaia Brushaber.

Sophie Pettit is a Devon-based textile and fibre artist and a student at the University of Exeter.

Tricia Zakreski and Ruth Broadway are an artist-research duo based in Exeter.

Mandy Griffiths is a Devon-based weaver and fibre artist and works with groups from MAKE Southwest.

Terry Cann is a Devon-based artist and illustrator who translates his illustrations and punk style to clothing.

Alison Murray is a fibre artist based in Devon, most known for her large-scale knitting projects and charity work.

Catherine Waite is a multidisciplinary Berkshire-based artist, whose creative spark took form after being taught how to knit by her mother.

Phantom Threads is an exhibition that focuses on artists and makers working with textile practices. It explores how craft carries traces of labour, care, gender, and memory through everyday making, matrilineal inheritance and embodied experience. The exhibition foregrounds makers' creative practices and celebrates their material and emotional contribution, giving what is stereotypically seen as 'women's work' more visibility and showcasing its often-underappreciated value.

In addition to the exhibition, Phantom Threads is facilitating a programme of free participatory workshops and events teaching and sharing the experience of knitting, mending, and textile-based making, encouraging connections and skill-sharing across generations.