threads

Threads questions preconceived ideas of what it means to be d/Disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent, through textiles, portraits, and a physical diary. Through the life of one knitted garment, created by local designer Spiraro, and the physical cultivation of personal safe spaces, the series gives love and space to a community who have historically been silenced and ostracised.

Participants spent weeks with the garment, exploring and chronicling their range of emotions and physical sensations through the manipulation of this garment. Over the course of the series, it takes different shapes, broken apart and stitched back together by the next hands, thus bringing important physical connection to a community often voluntarily or forcibly isolated. As it is handed from person to person, it chronicles personal and wider stories of pain, togetherness, and visibility.

Sitting above the images of the garment are portraits of the participants in their safe spaces, carefully crafted through multiple in-depth conversations. The action of describing, finding, and sharing deeply personal safe spaces to be photographed in is a reminder of the Love we receive from many places, including music, art, physical objects, and other people. These spaces often subvert the expectations of what it looks like to live with their different conditions, reminding us that no two experiences of disability, chronic illness, or neurodivergence are the same, but that there is immense joy in knowing your experiences are not yours to carry alone. The Disabled community has long felt an absence of both love and space. The personal experiences of individuals are easily overshadowed by the 'Social Issue of Disability. Threads uses the conversation between the portraits of person and garment to begin reconciling this gap between the social and medical models of disability, whilst revealing the complexities of living with disability and pain. 

Threads is a collaborative project, and I deeply thank everyone who was part of it for their input and openness. A special thank you to all the participants; Jemma Smyth, Erica Sait, Ped van Gils, Bella Skyriotis, Patience Ntim-Duodu, and Annika Ledet for creating this work together, and a deep thank you to Spiraro for their design and creation of the garment.