Culture And Memory

Common Threads

Common Threads will be a year-round programme of weaving activities culminating each September in a festival in central Sheffield celebrating and showcasing textile crafts from around the world. This project grew from a collaboration between arts company The Bare Project and the Higsad Alool Weavers, who practice heritage weaving from the nomadic Somali diaspora. We expanded this collaboration to include 3 other women’s weaving groups to co-produce workshops sharing textile practices. Together we hosted our first pilot of Common Threads festival in 2024. This work demonstrated a significant need for this project—to protect heritage crafts, celebrate cross-cultural exchange, and promote sustainable relationships with textiles. In recognition of this need, we want to scale-up Common Threads into a long-term programme - to support community weaving, to raise the profile of these disappearing heritage craft practices and to celebrate the rich and diverse textile crafts practiced in Sheffield today.