Travelling Tapestry

The CWPAI Travelling Tapestry is an international creative initiative bringing together women from Nigeria, Kenya, Brazil, the United States, Italy and the United Kingdom to collaboratively create a tapestry reflecting their lives, values and shared aspirations. Through this collective work, the project carries a powerful message of hope, empowerment and positive change.

'Food' by Halima

The initiative has been commissioned by the Centre for Women’s Policy and Agricultural Innovations (CWPAI), an organisation dedicated to empowering African women through agriculture, the arts, innovation and policy development, driving sustainable change across the continent.

I am thrilled to be the lead artist on the project, and working in partnership with Swindon City of Sanctuary to produce the UK contribution.

Comprising up to 100 individually embroidered squares, created by participants across the six countries, the completed tapestry will tour conferences and events around the world.

'Life' by Amena

Here’s a breakdown of the creative process

Bringing the idea to life

Olufunke Makinwa and Abiola Afolayan from CWPAI and I started with conversations on Zoom in January 2026. We talked through what they wanted the tapestry to represent, and how, between us, we could make that vision happen.

I began the planning by offering some suggestions for the overall format, and we agreed on a square design that will measure approximately 2m x 2m when complete.

I then devised a simple process that every participant could follow to design and stitch their individual square. I delivered an online training session with lead participants - Funke in Italy, Abiola in the US, and the leaders in the other countries. Since then, we have each run a series of workshops in our localities to create the individual squares.

The UK contribution

For the UK contribution, I led three workshops with a wonderful group of women from countries including Afghanistan, Syria, Nigeria and the UK, through Swindon City of Sanctuary and Swindon Borough Council's Live Well Team.

We began with an individual writing exercise, designed to help us identify words that represent us personally. Through sharing and conversation, we then honed these down, choosing one or two words to focus our designs around.

In the second workshop, we took those words and began to build designs from them. We sketched images to represent our chosen words, carefully building up a story, scene or collection of images. We also each included one overall key word within our design.

'Peace' by Nawda

'Wisdom' by Aderonke

Finally, we transferred the designs onto colourful squares of African Ankara fabric, measuring 20cm x 20cm and began the stitching process, using a range of stitches and embellishments. I have been intensely moved by the level of care, detail, thought, attention and love that everyone has put in to their designs and finished pieces. They are absolutely beautiful.

'Unity' by Jess

'Matriarchy' by Chloe

Bringing it all together

I'm excited to soon receive the stitched squares from the participating countries, after which I'll assemble them all as the Travelling Tapestry* — bringing together all these individual stories, ideas and creative responses into one collective artwork.

'Support Women' by Fayeza

'Courage' by Heven

'Home' by Naseema

*We are calling our textile project a Tapestry, but we're not using traditional tapestry techniques. It will be an embroidered textile artwork.