Fringe Arts Bath Festival 2026

The Stitch That Bit Back is a textile exhibition that refuses to sit quietly. The show brings together fibre works that challenge the long-held idea of textiles as passive, decorative, or confined to the domestic sphere. Here, thread becomes a tool for tension, resistance, and transformation—where softness carries strength and every material choice holds intent.

Across stitched, woven, sculpted, and experimental forms, the exhibition foregrounds practices that disrupt tradition and speak with urgency. Embroidery interrupts rather than embellishes; quilts question rather than comfort; lace sharpens into something more provocative. The works on display explore themes of resistance and repair, emotional labour, subversion of technique, and the uncanny or surreal qualities embedded in fibre.

Rather than adhering to a fixed theme, The Stitch That Bit Back unfolds as an open field of inquiry—where artists push, fray, and reimagine the boundaries of textile practice. Rooted in both heritage and forward-thinking experimentation, the exhibition highlights pieces that are quietly defiant or unapologetically confrontational.

This is textile art that doesn’t soothe—it challenges. Not softness for comfort’s sake, but softness with an edge.