UEW Students Lead Maiden "Stitched Feminine Voices" Online Exhibition of Young Women Fibre Artists

The exhibition features 31 selected works by emerging female artists including 29 students from UEW's Department of Textiles and Fashion and Department of Art Education. Joining them are three international artists: Kenyan fabric designer Ayallo Zilper Adhiambo, who documents East African hairstyles and headdresses and South African artists Londiwe Mtshali and Entle Mabusela, whose collaborative works explore themes of homemaking, memory and belonging.

Working in embroidery, appliqué, patchwork, quilting, weaving, tufting, tie-dye, batik, crochet and mixed-media textile, the artists stake a bold claim that fibre belongs squarely within contemporary art. The exhibition confronts a long-standing hierarchy in the art world in which textile traditions, the medium most closely associated with women's hands and hours have been dismissed as "only craft." These artists refuse that dismissal. Their works testify, argue, remember, mourn, protest and hope, addressing urgent themes including Ghana's environmental crisis, womanhood, labour and agency, history and memory, cultural continuity and the silences that must be broken.

A striking feature of the exhibition is its material ethic. Nearly all the works are made slowly, by hand, from materials that were thrown away, worn out, borrowed or overlooked. Polythene bags, jute sacks, discarded offcuts and synthetic hair are transformed into vessels of memory and testimony so that the medium itself practises what the message preaches.

The project offers its participants, most of them students and recent graduates, a documented, published and publicly exhibited body of work, an artist statement, a biography and an exhibition record, often their first professional rung. Successive editions will build mentorship, masterclasses, studio access and pathways from student work to sustainable careers, while assembling a growing archive of contemporary African women's fibre art for scholars, curators and educators. The virtual format removes barriers of geography and cost, allowing viewers in Accra, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Lagos or London to encounter the same stitches and stories

The project invites patrons, galleries, cultural institutions, corporate sponsors, universities, development agencies and friends of the arts to invest in future editions through sponsorship, acquisition of works and mentorship, converting every contribution directly into a young woman's materials, training, visibility and voice.

The exhibition is now live on the project's online platform. Members of the University community and the public are encouraged to view the works, read the artists' statements and witness the arrival of a new generation of African fibre artists claiming their place in contemporary art on their own terms.

Click the link below to download the "Stitched Feminine Voices" magazine

Stitched Feminine Voices Magazine