Common Threads

Submit to Love Studios is a unique collective of self-taught artists based in Hackney - all of whom have survived brain injuries. Some use this to inform their work, while others take inspiration from the world around them.

Their studio is just down the road from Autograph at Headway East London, a local charity supporting people affected by brain injury. We’ve been working with them for two years exchanging images and ideas, and thinking about how the cultural sector can be more accessible to artists with disabilities and community studios. Over that time, we’ve become friends.

Our latest project with the Studio was going to be a pop-up exhibition Common Threads at Autograph’s gallery. Like all of our summer exhibitions, it’s been postponed due to Covid-19. When the pandemic hit, the Studio carried on despite the challenges of lockdown, working online and – as always – collaboratively to keep making art. They also found time to work with Autograph to bring the experience of Common Threads online.

We say experience, because that’s what a project with Submit to Love Studios is. It’s never just an exhibition or just an event. It’s a community that brings a decade’s worth of insight and creative practice with them to gallery spaces – a take-over, in the most generous way possible. We’re proud to give them a platform at Autograph.

To kick things off, scroll down to see some of the art created for Common Threads. These works were inspired by images in Autograph’s collection, shared with the Studio over a series of workshops. It was the first time the Studio used textiles, and the results are stunning: our photographs charting the contribution of diverse cultures to Britain over two centuries have been reimagined as elaborate embroideries, appliqué and fabric prints.

Drawing from the collective’s lived experience of brain injury, the work in Common Threads explores ideas of heritage, talent and otherness - and the many ways underrepresented stories can be told.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing art, videos, writing, photographs and more from Common Threads. Join our newsletter and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook (or even LinkedIn) to keep up to date.

Headway East London looks to lose more than £75,000 before September as a result of Covid-19. You can help them continue their work supporting brain injury survivors by making a donation.