Location:
City Space
Cost:
Free
Dates:
17 Jul 2025 - 7 Sep 2025
Category:
Art and Craft, Exhibition, Jane Austen 250, Summer

An exuberant installation exploring the lives of working women in Winchester is coming to The Arc this Summer.
 

The City Space is proud to welcome a carefully and chaotically crocheted exhibition celebrating working women in Winchester. Colour, craft and care will overwhelm the mezzanine. Engaging with and responding to local women’s stories and experiences, Raffell is stitching together a show of equal heart and wit to uncover the complexities of working life for women in the city. 
 

Acting as both facilitator and creator, Raffell is set to bring his brand of non-conformist absurdism and irreverent crocheting to our city. But he will not be alone as we are reaching out to local groups, clubs, partners and more to collaborate with Joshua in the making of the works and the telling of stories.  

Raffell on the project:    

‘I am excited to be creating work for my upcoming solo show at City Space, inspired by the Jane Austen exhibition ‘Beyond the Bonnets’. This project aims to shine a spotlight and celebrate women living and working in Winchester today. To hear their otherwise overlooked life stories. I like to play with words, so for my show the ‘bonnet’ is not a hat but a car engine cover, reflecting on the women who are powering the engine driving Winchester. I work with mixed media, including textiles, fibreglass and found materials.’ 
 

Joshua Raffell is a Hampshire based artist who explores ideas unconventionally through installations and performances produced with materials and mediums relevant to his background and heritage. In his hands crochet, craft, and DIY adjacent materials metamorphose into vibrant but often challenging displays. Raffell brings an empathetic outsider perspective and an irrepressible creativity to every project. 
 

The exhibition is running alongside and created in response to the exhibition Beyond the Bonnets: Working Women in Jane Austen’s Novels which will explore the lives of real-life women from Regency Hampshire. 
 

If you are handy with a needle or want to share your story, please take part. Details will soon be released on how contributions can be made. 

Why not visit Winchester School of Art to see Joshua Raffell's latest exhibition, Nonsuch Memory of my Birth, and join him for an artists talk on Thursday 13 March at 1pm or 2.30pm

JOSHUA RAFFELL ART - Joshua Raffell Art

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