Dovecot Studios and Chris Ofili: The Caged Bird’s Song
- Region: Online
- Type: Talk
- Cost: Free
Tuesday 17th September · 18:30-19:30 GMT+1
Join Celia Joicey, Director of Dovecot Studios and Naomi Roberston, Master Weaver and Head of the Dovecot Tapestry Studio, to hear about the work of Dovecot Studios and the making of their major tapestry with Chris Ofili, The Caged Bird’s Song, commissioned by The Clothworkers’ Company. Explore Dovecot’s latest exhibition on a virtual tour which has brought the tapestry back to Scotland to be shown in the context of the tapestry studio where the work was created. Learn how the colour, myths and magic of Ofili’s watercolour design were transformed into a large format tapestry that took Dovecot’s master weavers over three years to create.
This event is part of Art History Festival 2024 organised by the Association for Art History.
Speaker biographies
Celia Joicey
Celia Joicey joined Dovecot as Director in September 2017. She is a graduate of Cambridge University and the Royal College of Art. Prior to her appointment as Director of Dovecot Studios, she was Head of the Fashion and Textile Museum, and before that, Head of Publications at the National Portrait Gallery in London and Editor of the RSA Journal and Head of Publications at the Royal Society of Arts.
Naomi Robertson
After graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 1990 with a BA(Hons) in Tapestry, Naomi Robertson joined Dovecot Studios as a weaver and was appointed Head of Tapestry Studio in 2013. Naomi has worked on some of the studio’s highest-profile design and weaving commissioned projects. These have included the R. B. Kitaj tapestry in the British Library, the Butterfly tapestry created in collaboration with Alison Watt for the Theatre Royal, and ‘Entanglement is More Than Blood’ with Alberta Whittle for the 59th Venice Biennale. Naomi is also a member of the Incorporation of Weavers in Glasgow.
Image credit:
Chris Ofili: Chris Ofili: The Caged Bird’s Song, Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, 2024; featuring The Caged Bird’s Song tapestry triptych by Chris Ofili, 2014 – 2017 © The artist. Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro, The Clothworkers’ Company and Dovecot Tapestry Studio, Edinburgh. Photography by Phil Wilkinson.