Threads of Care: Weaving, Memory and Community

Storytelling, and doing so in community, is a significant feature of Aasha’s practice. Early in her career, Aasha used making as a way to bring students and people in the wider community together through a Saturday morning club. She invited people who loved art in school, but who didn’t identify as artists to “make something that [led to] a sense of pride and joy at being able to make something.” This club helped attendees recreate that sense of accomplishment they may have felt when they made something they were proud of in school.

Aasha’s engagement with art exists beyond and within the formal structures of learning and teaching. Aasha commends the art curriculum for not being too prescriptive, which allowed her to write and create her own curriculum that meets the needs of students, “and encourages students to address and challenge the world around them and share part of themselves.” In her teaching practice, both prior to and during the residency, Aasha consistently brought in artists and exhibitions that used art for resistance, protest or anti-racism, alongside the National Curriculum and assessment requirements. Aasha’s identity as a Black woman, and her deep knowledge of artists of colour, empowered staff and students to explore a new world of art that could refine their creative thinking and their ability to articulate their views on worldly issues. One of the students in the Creative Resistance Club that Aasha ran in her school during the residency explained the reason why she wanted to join:

However in her own work, Aasha resists the urge to make art that exposes or confronts socio-political issues – she does not want to engage explicitly with political messages but still wants to “use making as a way of exploring something”. So, Aasha takes a meta-approach to resistance, tied up in the process of weaving, to consider “the resisting forces hold the pieces together”, and the psychological resistance that people experience when trying to recall memories. She does this by returning to the intergenerational link featured in her earlier work. As I Weave is a powerful collection of carefully interwoven photographs with accents of lace from Aasha’s grandmother’s garments.

The exhibition includes Aasha’s family photographs delicately and securely interwoven with wool, combining textures and colours to illustrate the complexity of family memories. Aasha explained that she did this because she felt as though she was at the stage in her career where she was “looking back at things and joining stuff together.” In this sense, where Aasha is in her career has shaped how she engaged with the residency. In a workshop held at Autograph entitled Re-weaving the Art and Design Curriculum Aasha shared her practice with 19 teachers from her school and the wider community. During the CPD session, one teacher commented that they developed a “cultural awareness through visualising / weaving personal narratives” and another teacher intended to “run weaving for other [departments as] it is a great way to reflect”.

From the start and throughout her career, Aasha has been weaving stories, materials, socio-political messaging and memories together for herself, fellow staff, students, and the wider community. It is my hope that the upcoming exhibition As I Weave is an affirmation of what is already true about Aasha: she is a Head of Faculty with vast expertise, and
she is an artist.