Stanley Picker Gallery is one of 6 recipients of the British Council ‘Art Connects Us’ research grant, which will support Yemi Awosile’s Stanley Picker Design Fellowship research.

‘Art Connects Us’ is a British Council led-strategy that seeks to develop stronger creative sectors and foster new relationships within Sub-Saharan Africa. Building on her 2017 presentation Orishirishi at the Gallery, Yemi Awosile will be leading on a research project in Senegal, visiting local organisations doing outstanding work with international artists, such as the Raw Material Company in Dakar, as well as practicing designers based in the region. 

Awosile is a textile designer who lives and works in London with a special interest in materials, technology and the visual arts which she expresses through textiles and material processes.  In her research she looks at the emergence of new sub-cultures created through virtual space and imagined proximity, enquiring into the migratory movement of people, exploring unexpected parallels through textiles, technology and audible soundscapes.

Awosile’s Stanley Picker Fellowship exhibition Orishirishi was informed by African sub-cultures rooted in an urban village in Delhi. The principle motivation for the project was to explore the social significance of textiles and its capacity to express collective narratives, with the aim of creating a textile collection that reflects creative dialogue between different social groups.