you’re hoping to achieve. (350 words max)
Threadbare Collective are currently on a residency at CCA Goldsmiths which ends in July 2025, we are then planning to collect an archive of our work so far. We put together a programme of workshops at CCA. We have organised alongside other artists and collectives such as Leah Clements, The Folly Building Workshop, Rowena Harris and Every Mouth Needs Filling. The work we have done focuses on the themes of rest, the body and architecture. We now have outcomes from the workshops such as drawings, writing, models, photography and embroidery, which point towards utopian spaces for non-normative bodies. We want to take this archive and present it in an exhibition at Outhouse Gallery in London. We also want to continue to run workshops in Camberwell, where we are based. The money will go towards developing our archive, installing our exhibition, paying artists to run workshops, programming participatory environments and working towards a future for our collective- this includes building a website, connecting with other collectives and buying materials.
Our collective is based in London, but one of our goals is to be active across the UK. We have extensive experience in running workshops which can bring different communities together. We would like to work with local artists to facilitate a workshop in Darlington, focussing on the local area and encouraging participation from artists and non-artists alike.
For examples of workshops which integrated with a community we have worked with Royal Brompton Hospital on the wards, bringing model making workshops to the patients, we have run workshops in Colchester as part of an art expo in the city and we have run nature workshops through the Letherby gallery. We strive to maintain connections once the workshop is complete, and want to develop an archive of many different communities and locations, so we pride ourselves on longer-term collaborations. As part of this ethos, we aim to help strengthen existing art networks in the local area of Darlington.
Threadbare Collective are Charlie Clark (curator) Isabel Reed (curator) Nadia Yasmin Lesniarek (artist and architect) and Charlie Hawksfield (artist.) Our practice focuses on rest, architecture and the body. We are interested in access, slow-production, non-normative bodies, radical architecture and self-build utopias. Our archive is the product of workshops in collaboration with other artists and collectives and can be seen as a collection of imagined utopias for non-normative bodies and identities. We have collaborated with a number of other archives (Feminist Library, ACME, RIBA) in an effort to build a context around the material we have collected from participants. This archive will be a jumping off point for an exhibition in October and we will continue to add to it as we work with more creatives in various fields and practices. Our residency at Goldsmiths CCA will end with a spoken word event in the Oak Gallery for Deptford X festival. We also curated an exhibition and performance night at 54 Camberwell Green in 2024 working with 18 artists working across 15 different disciplines including painting, video installation, glass sculpture, wood carving, photography, sound, embroidery poetry and song. During Isabel Reed’s time at Camberwell Kabinett she conducted several installations over a period of six months, these focussed on developing links with local artists and local community building.
We have a range of degrees between us. Nadia Lesniarek holds an MA in Architecture from the RCA and a BA in Architecture from Cambridge University, Charlie Clark and Isabel Reed each have an MFA in curating from Goldsmiths and Charlie Hawksfield holds an MA in Culture Industry from Goldsmiths.
We are currently in residence as a collective at Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, and are currently applying for the ACE Project grant to support our further programming and exhibition later this year. Charlie Hawksfield ran a non-profit project space which was Arts Council Funded, unfortunately it was shut down due to the pandemic. Nadia Lesniarek was the recipient of the Snowdon Trust award.
Charlie Hawksfield ran Wells Projects (2018-2020) in Battersea, London. Wells Projects was a non-profit artist-led project space which supported over 200 emerging artists over three years, we run projects online throughout the pandemic as part of the ACE funded Digital Commune initiative. We also produced screenings and events in local venues and businesses such as North Street Deli (also ACE funded). Isabel Reed was part of the Camberwell Kabinett, a small-scaled independent architectural intervention led by a group of artists and curators, situated in a public space in Camberwell engaging with local communities and running workshops with institutions such as Age UK Southwark. Nadia Lesniarek has organised and curated various exhibitions across London including with Tottenham Grow and 54 Camberwell Green.
As a collective, we are currently in residence at Goldsmiths CCA. The Folly Building Workshop, run by Charlie Hawksfield was commissioned by Sluice in 2024 for their expo Vernacular in Colchester. We were also asked by the Royal Brompton hospital to curate a workshop for patients, staff and visitors and have worked with Age UK in Southwark to deliver a workshop for older people.
N/A we produce archival material and site specific installations.
Charlie Hawksfield’s writing has been published in Fieldnotes Magazine, The Irish Literary Review, Sluice and Gut Feelings. His artworks was also featured in Nobody Journal and Deeply Sorry Magazine. In 2020 Why Now interviewed Charlie about Wells Projects as part of their Creative Spaces series.
We are currently on the Goldsmiths CCA residency programme. Charlie Hawksfield was a resident of the Typa residency in Tartu, Estonia. Isabel Reed conducted a placement with the Women’s Art Library. Charlie Clark has also done placements with ACME, Cubitt Gallery, and Goldsmiths CCA, and was selected for the Barbican Emerging Film Curator’s Lab.
Email: collectivethreadbare@gmail.com
Address: House 54, Camberwell Green, Camberwell, London, SE5 7AS, GB
Local Authority: Southwark
