Freddie Robins: A Thread That Connects at the RCA

For those lucky enough to catch this year's RCA MA Textiles graduate show, the sheer range on display will need little introduction. Multi-species symbiosis sat alongside rule-based horror drawn from Chinese folklore, while handprinted tapestries reimagined women's histories and contemporary labour through a gothic revival lens. It was a cohort unafraid of contradiction, and all the stronger for it.

If you didn't manage to catch the show, fear not. We're pleased to share a selection of the work here, alongside high-resolution images that capture the detail and craft behind each piece.

Xingbei Tao. Handwoven, 2026.

We were also delighted to speak with Freddie Robins about her own practice and her time as Interim Head of Programme for MA Textiles at the Royal College of Art, where she remains one of the most distinctive voices working in knitting today. She talks candidly about subversion as a form of critique and the balance of humour and fear in her work, before turning to what has changed in the students walking through the RCA's doors since she began teaching. Her work, which treats knitting as a tool for interrogating gender, identity and the domestic rather than a craft to be tamed and admired, sits in collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Government Art Collection. Read on for the full conversation.

Freddie Robins in her studio. Photo: Douglas Atfield

An Interview with Freddie Robins, July 2026

You’ve spent your career reframing the idea of knitting as safe or domestic. What first drew you to that particular subversion, rather than any other craft medium?

I was drawn to knitting first. I enjoyed it and was good at it. I even won a national knitwear design and hand knitting competition when I was sixteen. (I have only just realised how young I was. No one made a big deal out of it when I won. Infact my mother hid the letter from the organisers as it arrived the day before my birthday and she didn’t want me to be disappointed on my birthday). The desire, or more accurately the realisation that I was driven by a need to subvert everything, came later. Subversion is a way of questioning, a form of critique...

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Image Credits:

Lead: Shuyao Zhu, Mutation, Handwoven, 2026.

All further images as credited in captions.