Nerissa Cargill Thompson

Designer, maker and facilitator with over 20 years experience of professional and community practice. Originally trained in Theatre Design but through my community arts practice, my interest in fibre art grew and a desire to develop personal artwork. I returned to college, graduating from MA Textile Practice from Manchester School of Art in 2018. I am a member of Prism Contemporary Textiles Collective, ArtCan, Society for Embroidered Work, Precious Collective and a graduate member of Design Nation. Most of my sculptural work highlights the issue of plastic pollution and climate change, influenced by the litter I encountered on the school run each day, knowing that this litter was entering our waterways and ending up in our seas and on our beaches; found washed up on my trips back to my Mum’s on the coast of Fife. I want people to consider the packaging that we use and discard on a daily basis; objects such as drinks bottles that are so lightweight and seem so insignificant that we barely notice them. I cast them in cement to make them heavy and solid, to convey the weight of the issue and the permanence of these disposables. The incorporation of detailed embroidery, inspired by nature, touches upon the way our waste becomes subsumed into the natural world around us. My work investigates change over time, not just eroding or decaying but new layers of growth, giving juxtapositions of structure and colour. I create coastal inspired textures using a combination of embellishing and embroidery; blending a variety of recycled fabrics to create subtle variations in tone. These are stitched inside waste plastic to cast true to life pieces with cement giving a distinct contrast between the manmade structure of the packaging and the soft natural textures of the textiles.