Invitational Artist in Residence - May

Artist Bio

Claire Barber is a textile-based artist whose practice is shaped by site-responsive and materially driven enquiry informed by industrial histories, material culture, and embodied making. She graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1994 and was awarded a PhD by Publication in 2016 (Cloth in Action), recognising textiles as both aesthetic and social practice.

While grounded in textile traditions, her work extends into sound collaboration, photography, and participatory practice, treating textiles as sensory and spatial systems rather than purely visual objects.

Recent installation-based works exploring material transformation and sound have been presented at the University of Huddersfield Mezzanine Gallery and are forthcoming at The Hub, Sleaford, and with the 62 Group of Textile Artists at Sunnybank Mills, West Yorkshire (2026).

She has exhibited internationally, including at the VIII International Triennial of Textile Art, Szombathelyi Gallery (2024), the XI International Biennial of Textile Art, Miami (2025), and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (2025). Ongoing collaborations with sound artists Gavin Osborn and Monty Adkins have been presented at venues including the London Wetland Centre, Chelsea Space, and Festival of the Quilts.

Her broader practice includes Arts Council England–funded participatory projects such as Blue Plaques of Intangible Experiences (2019) and The Last Dance (2022).

Artist Statement

My practice is shaped by site-responsive and materially driven enquiry informed by industrial histories, material culture, and embodied making. Although grounded in textile traditions, I approach textiles as sensory and spatial systems rather than purely visual objects, extending into sound collaboration, photography, and participatory practice.

My current studio work centres on shoelaces as a primary material. I am drawn to them as overlooked, mass-produced textile objects with petrochemical origins and no clear recycling pathway. Through installation-based work, I explore processes of material transformation, considering how these everyday objects hold industrial, environmental, and social narratives.

Sound is integral to this enquiry. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, I investigate how textiles can be experienced not only through touch and sight but through vibration, resonance, and spatial acoustics. I am interested in how material and sound together generate embodied, immersive environments that shift textiles from object to encounter.

Across my practice, I consider cloth as both aesthetic form and social process — a site where material histories, environmental urgency, and collective experience intersect.

About the Residency

During the four-week residency, Barber will develop a new body of installation work exploring the relationship between textiles and sound, marking a shift toward more immersive, embodied forms.