Women, Work and the Politics of Thread at London Art Fair
At the start of the international art calendar, London Art Fair has long been a barometer for shifting currents in contemporary practice. In January 2026 (21–25 January), one such current comes sharply into focus: the growing prominence of women working with textiles to produce politically engaged art – and the art market’s increasing appetite for work that combines material intelligence with social purpose.
Long undervalued and historically sidelined as ‘women’s work’, stitching and textile processes are now being mobilised as tools of resistance, documentation and critique. At London Art Fair, a number of artists are using thread as both medium and message: a language through which to question power structures and examine themes of gender, labour, ecology, migration and hierarchy within the art world itself.
Nashi – ‘I Suddenly Felt Lucky, I Felt English’ by Julia Hall 2024. Copyright The Artist.
Among the presentations are Julia Hall’s ongoing series REFUGE, which documents the experiences of migrant women in the UK over the past 85 years. Hall works slowly and deliberately, hand-embroidering each woman’s own words across oil paintings of garments or personal items that belong to them. From Taban, who fled persecution under Saddam Hussein, to Leila, whose academic work in post-Soviet Azerbaijan put her at risk of arrest, the works carry both intimacy and weight. Clothing becomes testimony; embroidery, a means of bearing witness.
Isabel Fletcher, Satin Overlap, 2023. Suspended ballet shoe offcuts with hand stitch. Copyright The Artist.
Labour and visibility are also central to Isabel Fletcher’s practice. Using discarded manufacturing scraps, Fletcher exposes the hidden work behind everyday objects. At the Fair, her piece Satin Overlap transforms offcuts from ballet shoes – materials typically destined for landfill – into sculptural forms through cutting, layering, stitching and draping. The work speaks quietly but insistently about repetition, waste and the unseen hands that shape refined surfaces.
Vanessa Barragão, Picos. 2025. Hand-tufted wool, tercel, and latex. Copyright The Artist.
Elsewhere, Vanessa Barragão constructs immersive ecosystems from recycled deadstock yarn. Drawing on labour-intensive craft traditions historically associated with women, her richly textured works address climate change while foregrounding the time, skill and care embedded in their making. Similarly, Laetitzia Campbell uses thread as a form of drawing, tracing memory, identity and heritage through embroidered lines that challenge conventional hierarchies between fine art and craft, and between intellectual and manual labour.
Laetitzia Campbell, By the Window, 2025. Cotton and polyester thread on cotton fabric. 79 x 61.5 cm. Copyright The Artist.
Many of these artists feature in Platform, the Fair’s curated section for 2026, titled The Unexpected and overseen by art historian Dr Ferren Gipson. Building on the themes of her book Women’s Work, Gipson’s curation highlights artists who use materials in surprising ways to expand how art is made, valued and understood. In doing so, the section reflects a broader shift within the art market: a recognition that textile-based practices are not peripheral, but central to some of the most urgent conversations in contemporary art today.
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Further Information:
The London Art Fair takes place on 21 - 25 January 2026, at the Business Design Centre, Islington, N1 0QH
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Image Credits:
Lead: Julia Hall, "Fozia—‘Everyone is Trying to Make the Best of their own Situation’" (Detail), (Somalia, arr. September 1985)
All further images as credited in photo captions.