We’re delighted that for seam collective’s A Visible THREAD exhibition tour, we achieved most of our aims and exceeded some.

Statistics

• We had 18,906 in-person visitors to our five exhibitions, twice as many as we expected
• We impacted 110,456 people, overall, 9,000 more than we expected
• We engaged 55 more active participants than we expected, through workshops, demonstrations, participatory and co-creative activities & conversations (this doesn’t include the workshops run in some venues by local artists)
• We had 3,806 new followers on Instagram by the end of the tour
• We had 3,763 more visitors to our website during the tour than in the previous similar period
• We had double the engagement with our annual #SeptTextileLove Instagram challenge in September 2023 compared to September 2022
• We had more than 2000 subscribers to our newsletter by the end of the tour, the limit of free access to Mailchimp. We’ve now migrated to Substack to grow our audiences further. Click here to sign up to our free newsletter to be the first to receive our news

Achievements

A Visible THREAD tour

• We planned and installed five highly professional exhibitions of textile fine art around South West England and one in Wales, including one extra physical venue, Wirth Gallery at Sherborne Girls’.
• We engaged with five local communities; the exhibitions were well received by our audiences, with lots of positive feedback
• All 15 seam members exhibited in at least one venue; some exhibited work in all five venues
• The tour motivated some members to keep making new work so that, quite unusually for a tour, each exhibition was different
• A Visible THREAD culminated in a grand finale at the last venue, Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton, Devon, where we exhibited everything made for the tour by all 15 artists

Making, experimenting and learning

• All 15 seam artists researched, developed and showed new experimental work focusing on sustainability, one artist more than anticipated
• All 15 seam artists carried out a sustainability audit for their individual practices, followed by in-depth discussions of the results in small groups, and then individual commitment statements to working more sustainably
• Each artist was required to write an in-depth blog post about their new work which developed our critical thinking as individuals and as a group
• Four seam members made new interactive or touchable work
• We made one collaborative textile book, with a page made by each member using their chosen materials and processes
• We worked collaboratively to make eight hand-dyed and stitched cloth books kits to sell as part of our match funding
• The tour enabled most artists to learn new skills by sharing roles eg curation, liaising with galleries, marketing etc
• We made four impromptu videos of seam members talking about their work at Wirth Gallery
• Eight seam artists made ten more videos about their new work for A Visible THREAD for a showreel at Thelma Hulbert Gallery
• We facilitated participatory and co-creative activities in four venues
• We trialled one new online activity, four ‘in-conversation’ sessions with seam members, as a collaboration with another organisation. Sadly it wasn’t as well-attended as we had hoped.
• A Visible THREAD strengthened team seam through working closely together and mutual support
• We extended our virtual reach worldwide via social media, our newsletter, blogs and #SeptTextileLove

Feedback

Artist feedback

Evaluations from seam members show that being part of the project:

• Has benefited everyone greatly in terms of our individual professional development
• The focus on sustainability and the environmental audit have challenged us all to be more sustainable in our practices
• Has motivated us all to make experimental new work, we were inspired by peers & our visitors & gained new followers on social media
• Has strengthened the collective, as we worked closely together in the planning and delivery. Although seam has toured before, this was more ambitious as it took place in fine art galleries rather than more craft-oriented venues, so attracted new audiences
• Most of the members said that the tour gave them opportunities to develop skills for themselves and for the collective eg reflective writing, curating, liaising with venues, installing work etc
• Positive feedback from visitors, gallery staff and volunteers shows that the tour was inspiring and changed some people’s expectations of textiles as art. The focus on sustainability was also found to be thought provoking.

Visitor feedback

Feedback from our visitors shows that our project benefited the people and communities we expected. From data gathered at the Fine Foundation (77 responses):

• 40% hadn’t heard of seam
• 44% of our visitors were ‘just passing by’
• 8% said they went to exhibitions less than once a year
• Nearly 80% of the respondents rated their experience of the exhibition as ‘high’
• The ‘Words at the Black Swan‘ group of poets in Frome wrote 11 poems in response to some of the works at A Visible THREAD, Black Swan Arts
• Throughout the tour, we had lots of positive audience feedback, via conversations, visitors’ books, labels on participatory installations and social media.

Team seam!

We dealt with any problems or changes effectively. Being invited to exhibit in one extra venue was a welcome change which expanded our reach. Having an extended tour inspired some of the group to keep making new work to show in subsequent venues. This meant that the exhibition was different each time and that some visitors came to more than one show.

Between us we have solid and diverse sets of skills and experience. Members were very committed to the project and to one another, so we were able to manage any other problems we had. We communicate effectively via regular online meetings, email, WhatsApp, Trello and a shared drive. At times, other commitments meant that some members weren’t able to install/derig/transport work or exhibit in some of the venues, but we always had enough of us willing to do what needed to be done. We had a couple of issues installing some of the works but the team curating each show dealt with them professionally and sensitively.

What’s next?

As a result of the A Visible THREAD tour we have become a much stronger team. Its success gives us validation as a group, but also as individual artists. It’s been very aspirational, so much so that we have applied for and been awarded another Arts Council Project grant for an even more ambitious project, Warped and Wasted, which focuses on sustainability and collaboration. This time we’re also working with external mentors. Building on what we’ve learned during the A Visible THREAD tour, it will also include a day of Textile Talks from seam members and experts in the fields of art, sustainability and textiles. This in itself is a huge development in seam’s history and we’re delighted to be able to add to the critical dialogue about these important issues.