Pauline Cooke, who produced the exhibition, said, “I wanted to celebrate textiles as an art form, not only for its aesthetic quality, but also because it is a remarkable medium that lends itself to the telling of a story or the sending of a message.”

Textiles have been predominantly a female artform and many girls of older generations were taught to sew for domestic purposes. In the past, it has been dismissed as less skilful than painting or sculpture and associated with the physical wearing of clothes and furnishings, the soft and the pliable. But this is changing.

This exhibition drew on the capacity for textiles to not only set an everyday scene but also to narrate a story, often combining imagery with words. The artists involved have shared personal tales of joy and achievement, but also of suffering, hardship and migration. It also references the role played by textiles in the history of activism and protest. Here, the work adorns the walls and the furniture, but it can also be carried and worn, as a chronicle of atrocities or as a proclamation of allegiance to a cause.

Many pieces illustrate how textiles can be a tool for expression, in that they are not only seen but felt and so lend themselves beautifully to the exploration of emotion. Stitching is an intricate form of mark-making and can also bind and hem and weave together. Even the language of sewing is symbolic of sharing and healing.

Many of the artists have also used found or second hand materials in their work or exploited the versatility of textiles by combining cloth and stitching with other media.