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...
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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.