Crowdfunder Aims To Transform Arnolfini Into A Living, Breathing Textile Studio

Arnolfini has launched its first ever crowdfunding campaign through Art Happens with Art Fund. With a target of £20,000, the month-long campaign aims to transform Arnolfini into a living, breathing textile studio for as many members of the community as possible. Celebrating textiles as an art form that can create important connections across cultures, the programme will include a gigantic weaving machine for visitors to use and new spaces for making and telling stories through textiles. This ambitious summer-long engagement programme will coincide with Arnolfini’s major exhibition of textiles: Threads (8 July to 1 October 2023), featuring work from twenty-one contemporary international and intergenerational artists, co-curated by leading textile artist Alice Kettle.

Funds raised through the Art Happens Crowdfunder campaign will enable Arnolfini to:

●      Build a gigantic, interactive weaving machine for everyone to use;

●      Create a new textile workshop space open every day;

●      Host weekly family activities throughout the summer holidays delivered by artists-in-residence Let’s Make Art;

●      Support Arnolfini’s Resident Women's Craft Club – made up of refugee and asylum communities – to work with exhibiting artists and share their traditions and skills with visitors;

●      Bring Celia Pym’s Mending Project to Bristol to explore the visible mending and repair of textiles that carry personal stories and memories;

●      Commission Farwa Moledina to create a Majlis (the Arabic term for a seated room for people to gather), to create a space using her bespoke textile patterns in which people can spend time and add their own stories to the work through embroidery.

Donations start at £5 with a range of exclusive rewards, including:

●      Limited edition tote bag and sew-on fabric patches designed by Let’s Make Art;

●      Hand-embroidered cushions created by Bridges for Communities, Bristol with Alice Kettle and commissioned by Christopher Farr Cloth;

●      An exclusive visit to artist Will Cruickshank's rural South Devon studio with Alice Workman, Director of Bo Lee and Workman Gallery;

●      Curator-led Threads exhibition tour with lunch;

●      A unique artwork by artist Alice Kettle.

Arnolfini has one month to raise the £20,000 needed and must achieve the full amount to receive the funding.

Gary Topp, Director at Arnolfini said:

“For over sixty years, Arnolfini has been dedicated to contemporary art and cultural engagement, bringing together diverse communities and fostering creativity and collaboration. We are thrilled to launch Arnolfini’s first-ever crowdfunder campaign, working with Art Fund, to deliver this ambitious and exciting summer engagement programme inspired by the power of textiles. With just one month to reach our target, we are grateful to everyone who is about to support us to achieve our goal."

Help Arnolfini to create a new community of makers and bring thousands of people together to find common threads.

Please donate at artfund.org/ArnolfiniThreads

#ArnolfiniThreads