Soft Support II

Collaborative stitching project (hand stitched cushions, scrap curtains, publication)

Artists’ Work in Libraries Commission

Merton Libraries 2025

Soft Support II was a nomadic engagement project, traveling between all seven libraries in Merton. In each location, a sewing workshop was set up, inviting carers to meet, make and chat by working on a collective textile installation.

Donation boxes for pre-loved fabrics were set in the libraries and these materials were use to make large cushions and hanging curtains for a rest area. All remaining textiles were shredded at FibreLab and were used as filling for the cushions.

“Together, we unpicked what care means to each of us: the care we give and receive, the ways we care for ourselves, and the care we extend to our surroundings. We spoke about the support systems in our lives — official ones, but especially the unofficial: family, friends, and neighbours, the everyday networks we depend on.

We chatted as we sewed with donated, preloved fabrics collected in boxes across the libraries. Each textile — with its own shape, size, and pattern — carried traces of a previous life; they had been worn, torn, and used by someone before.

Sewing and care work share a quiet kinship. Both are gentle, repetitive, and often invisible forms of labour, they are mundane yet intimate and deeply meaningful. Both have long been associated with women and with what has been called “women’s work.” Sewing feels like the perfect medium through which to explore the contradictions of women’s labour — the labour of care, and the labour of love. Drawing on generations of passed-down knowledge, yet now freed from any practical necessity, sewing offers a fitting space to reflect on these age-old expectations of women, needle in hand.”

Full text from publication

Gal Leshem