Manchester School of Art lecturer publishes new textile collection ahead of London exhibition
24 January 2025
Dr Lynn Setterington, a Senior Lecturer and Course Leader in MA Design for Health & Wellbeing, has recently released a new publication titled ‘Connecting Threads’.
Dr Lynn Setterington, a Senior Lecturer and Course Leader in MA Design for Health & Wellbeing at Manchester Metropolitan, has recently released a new publication via Quickthorn Books titled ‘Connecting Threads’.
The book brings together twelve of her textile projects that took place between 1981 and 2024. These social history documents provide tactile evidence of untold stories, people and places through stitch and the work is both personal and political. Dr Lynn Setterington commented that the textile medium is a powerful way to convey these personal and political stories because “textiles are a great unifier and global connector. Everyone knows what textiles are and uses them, it is widely accessible and understood medium”.
The work featured in ‘Connecting Threads’ ranges from colourful hand embroidered fragments, which record everyday life in South London and Yorkshire, to monumental site-specific banners made with construction workers in the north of England. Together, they describe a life in stitch and detail how an artist/embroiderer works and thinks creatively; how projects take shape and are managed and some of the hurdles encountered in socially engaged practice. The pieces were selectively chosen by Dr Lynn Setterington to accompany her upcoming exhibition: “This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of my creative work – the textiles in the book are part of an exhibition - The Art of Mankind opening on 28th March at the Fashion /Textile museum in London so I saw it as a good opportunity to create the visual publication”.
The publication encompasses themes of identity and belonging, health and wellbeing, sustainability, community cohesion and social inequality, and offers sensory testaments of life today. Each theme and each piece of work is equally valuable in the collection as Dr Lynn Setterington stated: “No one project is more important than the next, they all offer a way to make overlooked people and stories visible. They are act as commemorative devises - I know several people who took part in past projects who have subsequently died so the cloths are tactile memorials too”.
Order ‘Connecting Threads’ now
Find out more about ‘The Art of Mankind’ exhibition at the London Fashion/Textile Museum
Learn about at MA Design for Health & Wellbeing at Manchester Met
