The third edition of Harewood Biennial, 'Create/Elevate', celebrated the power of craft to surprise, inspire and bring people together to imagine new worlds. Presented within Harewood House, and across its grounds and gardens, it brought together the work of 16 British and international artists, designers and craft collectives including four major new commissions.
For this exhibition, Harewood House commissioned two new ‘Common Threads’ panels. ‘Common Threads’ is a women’s collaborative embroidery project initiated by Alice Kettle, following her ‘Stitch a Tree’ project for the Karachi Biennial. The project brings together artisans from the Ra’ana Liaquat Craftsmen’s Colony (RLCC) in Pakistan with women from the South Asian diaspora in Britain, creating a shared body of work developed across borders and cultures.
Kettle began the project online during the pandemic, meeting regularly with the women at RLCC to embroider together and to explore ideas of home, belonging, and the relationship between people and the land they inhabit. Aware of the significant South Asian diaspora in East Lancashire, she introduced participants in the UK and Karachi online, enabling them to collaborate on a project that transcended geography and cultural difference.
The first phase of the project was with the British Textile Biennial in 2023. Participants from Community Arts by ZK in Pendle and the Bangladesh Welfare Association in Burnley shared personal stories of home with their counterparts in Karachi. Working with artist Rabia Sharif, these narratives were translated into stitched imagery. A third group, based in Bristol and working through the charity Bridges for Communities in partnership with Arnolfini, later joined the project. Together, the UK groups completed the panels, filling in the remaining sections to form a collective visual narrative.