Introducing My Studio Newsletter Updates from My Practice

Dear Friends,

I hope this email finds you well in these challenging times. Not a day passes without me wondering how you are and where your hearts sit. At the moment, I feel incredibly fortunate to be writing from Hamburg, Eastern Cape, in rural South Africa. Although I have now relocated to the UK, I am spending a few weeks here researching and exploring ideas for a new body of work—considering the physical experience of landscape, memory, and history, and how these are told, understood, and reinterpreted.

I would also like to share some exciting news: a book to which I have contributed a chapter, Reading the Thread: Cloth and Communication, will be launched on 22 February at the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) in Bristol.

Edited by Professor Lesley Millar MBE and Professor Alice Kettle, this book brings together artists, theorists, and designers to explore the role of cloth as a means of recording and communicating human experience. Just as fabric is made of interwoven threads, it also carries the stories, identities, and histories of those who create and wear it. The launch event will include a discussion with the editors and some of the contributing authors.

The book launch also introduces RWA’s upcoming summer exhibition, Soft Power: Lives Told Through Textile Art, a group show opening on the 16th May, where I am honoured to be exhibiting Cuttings 1820 – 2020 — a collaborative work with the Keiskamma Art Project (KAP) created in 2020.

Cuttings 1820–2020 debuted at GFI Art Gallery in Gqeberha in 2020 before being acquired by the Spier Collection. It was later exhibited at Spier Arts Trust, Union House, Cape Town, in 2021 and 2022. In late 2023, it was featured in In Search of the Birds of the Sea, a group exhibition at Spier Farm in collaboration with KAP. Above left: An installation view from the exhibition’s opening. Right: A moment with Nozeti Makhubalo, a KAP collaborator on Cuttings 1820–2020, and I.

(Photos by Anneri Wasserman,Basque Imagery.)

Soft Power highlights the power of cloth in storytelling—how textiles establish a direct and emotional connection between artist and viewer, making personal and collective histories feel both familiar and deeply resonant. The works reflect autobiographical narratives, hidden struggles, and global events such as the pandemic, while also making bold statements about empowerment and change.

Curated by Professor Alice Kettle and Professor Lesley Millar MBE, it will be a privilege to exhibit alongside an exceptional group of contemporary textile artists:

Anurita Chandola, Mona Craven, Rachel Fallon, Sarah-Joy Ford, Enam Gbewonyo, Shelly Goldsmith, Kani Kamil, Sabine Kaner, Alice Kettle, Reiko Koga, Phillipa Lawrence, Lise Bjorne Linnert, Susie MacMurray, Alice Maher, Suzumi Noda, Paula Reason, Erin M Riley, Lasmin Salmon, Amneh Shaikh-Farooqui, Ellen Sharples, Kari Steihaug, Maryam Wahid, Audrey Walker.

If you are in or near Bristol, I would love for you to visit the exhibition.

I have also recently set up a new Instagram account: @pippahetheringtonstudio—please follow me there for regular insights and updates.

Thank you for your continued interest and support in my work. Wishing you all the very best.

Warm regards, Pippa