Strange Harvest

Pop up Exhibition at The Old Waterworks, Southend-on-Sea, 2022.

Strange Harvest...

explores hand-in-hand ties between

the beginning of woven fibres and the descent of humankind

into sedentary living and agriculture, leading to the present day

and beyond.

Philippa Stewart’s installation presents a new body of work,

with components depicting relics of the past, the emergence of

a garment to be activated in the future, sedentary textiles and

mechanical spindles whorls.

Works sit in a state of in-betweeness, reawakening a primordial

connection amongst an underlying and prevalent sense of anxiety

for the future. Spindles turn like ticking clocks, leading a count down

to the inevitable while archival drawings of hand tools offer

ambiguous instruction to survival.

The skin or pelt, a symbol of death and echo of life shrouds and protects

its wearer as it transitions from the simple skin to skin cloak, to the complex

woven sleeved tunic mirroring the double edged sword of ‘advancement’.

Materials feature a combination of natural dyed, found, foraged,

reclaimed with repurposed woven fabrics.

Philippa’s practice explores a determination to reconnect with the natural

world through ancient technologies and material culture first

established in prehistoric hunter-gatherer civilizations. Family and heritage

form an active role in her approach, exploring the importance of

sharing practical skills and exchanging experiences between

father, mother, daughter and brother.

Her fascination with survival and adaptation extends to fibre and the

development of the first garments from skin to cloth, leading to the

turning point between nomadic and sedentary living. The

disintegration of historical fibre leaves small traces of its existence

in universal hand tools such as needles and spindle whorls, creating

a realm of speculation in which Philippa’s works embellish

archeological truths, repurposes modern materials,

forges and misplaces replicas and reimagines an alternative future.

Studio photography by Anna Lukala 2026.