Making Common Ground

Vanessa Rolf

Making Common Ground is a participatory element of Vanessa Rolf’s practice that connects stitch with mapping. The workshops invite people to spend time exploring landscapes they know well, have journeyed through or simply imagined by translating both fixed landmarks and fleeting experiences into a series of stitched marks. The resulting ‘maps’ encourage time spent reflecting on the significance of place to our identity, an opportunity to retrace our footsteps and provide spaces for sharing stories whilst we stitch.

Making Common Ground is a workshop that has taken several formats with participants in different locations, for varying numbers of sessions, in person and online. Each participant is invited to create a simple stitched map. Many participants to date have stitched before but working in this intuitive way without marking out their design first is often a new approach for those involved. Everyone is encouraged to explore their own mark making with stitch inspired by maps, journeys and place.

Maps of all descriptions are shared in the workshops. Conventional maps that show landmarks, tracks and paths and describe the geographical layout of a place are explored for how these elements might be translated into simple marks that can be stitched. Larger scale maps show how places relate to one another and how we might want to depict movements of people, shifting boundaries, political changes, and climatic patterns. The aim is to explore the variety of historical, cultural or political perspectives inherent in the stories maps tell us. 

The sessions focus less on generating accurate information for orientation or using actual maps as reference but are more concerned with exploring a place in your minds eye, travelling through the geography as the needle travels across the cloth. People create references to the landscape and its textures but also their own memories of people, events and even sensations. Choices of fabric and thread often include significant references, sometimes subconsciously.  Reusing old cloth is encouraged as it often adds layers of meaning or influences composition, as a participant works around a pocket or buttonholes say. 

The value of the workshops is in the sharing of stories about the places that shape us, through an unfolding process of stitching and spending time exploring an inner landscape we make common ground.

 Artist profile

Vanessa Rolf uses the familiar material language of cloth and stitch to explore ideas of labour, geography and collective inheritance. Vanessa’s work interweaves the relationships of place, objects and identity shaped by capitalist, patriarchal, colonial narratives.

Vanessa studied at the Royal College of Art and has exhibited widely. She is a member of the artist cooperative The 62 Group. Vanessa is based in Hampshire, U.K.

Vanessa is an artist, freelance educator, visiting lecturer and engagement consultant. She founded and directed ReachOutRCA, the Royal College of Art’s engagement programme for which she she was awarded an Honorary Fellowship in 2016. Vanessa led National Saturday Art Club at Winchester School of Art and was Engagement Curator at John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, working with schools, families and community groups. She is a visiting lecturer at BA and MA level at Winchester School of Art, University of the Creative Arts, Farnham, Solent University Southampton and Chelsea College of Art and Design (UAL). Vanessa continues to work alongside people of all ages in educational and community spaces to exchange ideas and skills.