Subversive Threads is a new solo exhibition by Meanjin-based artist Rae Haynes, whose contemporary feminist practice interrogates gender ethics, language, and abstraction through text, textiles, and installation.
Emerging from Haynes’ ongoing research into the legacies of embroidery in feminist art—particularly inspired by Rozsika Parker’s landmark text The Subversive Stitch (1984)—the exhibition connects personal genealogy with broader histories of women’s creative labour. Haynes traces a lineage to pioneering British textile artist Mary Linwood (1755–1845) and to her own ancestors, Claudia and Ada Hull, who founded Linwood College in Bulanaming/Marrickville in the 1890s. Through this intersection of archival research and lived inheritance, Haynes reimagines embroidery as a feminist, genderqueer, and decolonial act of resistance.
Informed by recent study at the Royal School of Needlework (UK) and research residencies across leading archives, Subversive Threads weaves together theory, material practice, and community participation. The exhibition invites audiences to reconsider the needle not merely as a domestic tool, but as a medium of critique, care, and subversion.
When: 17 October – 22 November 2025
Opening Night: Friday 17 October, 6:00–9:00pm
Hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 10am–5pm
Image: Courtesy of the artist.
