Harriët Riddell
Harriët Riddell
Get Comfortable & Nature Knows
InStitchYou is a mobile sewing project in which Harriet Riddell turns her sewing and embroidery into a performance. She travels to different locations and captures her surroundings directly on fabric – sometimes using a bicycle to power her sewing machine. In 2024, she came to the TextielLab for technical support on an art project for Knepp, a rewilding initiative in England. On the 2.5-hectare estate, nature is given the opportunity to take care of and restore itself. For an exhibition on the estate, Riddell designed two armchairs that celebrate the rewilding approach with an ode to plants that are considered weeds.
In the Lab, Riddell developed laser-cut felt flowers and embroidered caterpillars and butterflies that were then applied to the upholstery. The yellow chair, Get comfortable, is dedicated to ragwort, an unpopular plant that is poisonous for mammals and humans. However, the striped caterpillar of the cinnabar butterfly depends on it. The chair aims to change perceptions about this plant. The red chair, Nature knows, tells the story of the thistles that overran the estate in the first stage of rewilding. After a while, thousands of butterflies appeared and laid eggs on the thistles. The hungry caterpillars that emerged solved the problem.
Photos by Oliver Lane
