牛牛资源

The fifteenth annual Christine Risley Award for outstanding work in textiles by a graduating 牛牛资源 student has been won by BA Art graduate Tyreis Holder.

The cash prize is awarded annually by the 牛牛资源 Textile Collection and Constance Howard Gallery in memory of textile artist and former member of staff Christine Risley (1926鈥�2003). 

With degree shows postponed or moved online this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, the award was judged for the first time from online submissions. The judges describe the entries as 鈥渁 testament to the resilience shown by the student population during this difficult time.鈥� 

The panel were particularly impressed by the strength of Tyreis Holder鈥檚 practice, which explores self-identity and her own 鈥榯rilogy of cultures鈥� through the language of textiles and clothing. 

Guest judge Rose Sinclair, Lecturer in Design Education in the Department of Design said of Holder鈥檚 work: 鈥淭hese works are rooted sensitively within ideas based around a divided self, and the relationship between textile and the body, textiles and text, and text and orality, describing the emergence of an identity.鈥�

Born in 1999, Holder is an artist, poet and visual storyteller of Jamaican and St Vincent descent. Her artwork has recently been exhibited at the South London Gallery and as a poet she has performed at the South London Gallery, Wellcome Collection, ICA and hARTslane Gallery over the past year. 

Holder translates her poetry into textile pieces, installations and performances. For 鈥業DK, I鈥檓 calling this Midnight hues, or suttin like dat鈥� (2019) she created a site of healing in response to the systemic oppression of black women. She explained that the choice to leave garments unfinished or unhemmed reflects the nature of her mother tongue, Patois (translated as 鈥榬ough speech鈥�) and conveys a narrative which the artist describes as existing 鈥渇reely on an continuum, with no ending or fullstop鈥�. The work was commissioned by local arts festival Deptford X in 2019. 

Rose Sinclair, whose own research explores the development of textile clubs used by Caribbean women in Britain in the 1950s and '60s as a catalyst for social and economic change, adds: 鈥淭here is the connection throughout between the historical narrative of textile seen through the artefact of 'crochet' in the Caribbean space and artefact of 'patois' both tracers of moments and embodied practices of self-identity.鈥� 

BA Art graduate, Corinne (Shih-Yen) Chan was highly commended by the Christine Risley Award judges, who said that her 鈥渦ncanny performance works capture the imagination with their reference to ecological endeavours in a posthuman world.鈥� 

[Corrine Chan, 'Dreaming of a Field' (2020), proposal for a performance including animation, felt, polyester and lycra bodysuit and performance, photograph by the artist.]

The Christine Risley Award has been running since 2005 to honour Risley鈥檚 role as a key member of Constance Howard鈥檚 innovative 牛牛资源 textiles department in the 1960s. The 拢500 prize was won last year by Farrah Riley-Gray for her work dealing with misogynoir and hair within black cultures. 

Find out more about the Constance Howard Gallery, Textile Collection, and the Christine Risley Award

Find out more about Tyreis Holder鈥檚 work at