Sharing Love is an upcoming exhibition curated by Bristol Refugee Artists Collective (BRAC) that will feature in the RWA alongside the upcoming exhibition, Soft Power: Lives told through textile art.

We caught up with Helen Jacobs, Head of Learning & Engagement, who has been collaborating with BRAC as part of the RWA’s Learning and Participation programme to find out how the exhibition was developed, what to expect from the show and the wider aims of the Learning and Participation programme at the RWA. 

Helen, tell us about Sharing Love: 

Sharing Love is an exhibition curated by the artists at Bristol Refugee Artists Collective and has been created as a response to the themes within our summer exhibition Soft Power: Lives told though textile art. As with Soft Power, Sharing Love uses textiles as a form of portraiture and storytelling. 

BRAC is a membership group we have been lucky enough to partner with for over five years. They are a collective of practicing artists who also have lived experience of the Asylum and Refugee system. Through workshops happening in Easton Community Centre, a hotel and the RWA gallery, they will be creating new pieces using textiles to explore themes including home, migration and sanctuary. 

The work made by sanctuary seeking participants will be exhibited in our Link gallery, along with three dresses in partnership with Dorcas Dress Project, a charity that teaches dress-making and enterprise skills to people across the world.

One featured dress is made from embroidered panels contributed by participants from around the globe. Another will be made by BRAC from panels created in their participant workshops, and the final piece is a paper dress that invites visitors to make their own contribution. What connects all the pieces are people’s stories of migration and sharing love.  

How do you create a programme that responds to the themes within an exhibition? 

Our programme of exhibitions is planned in advance, which complements our commitment to exploring ways in which the RWA can support the wonderful breadth of artists out there. We believe co-creation is a long-term commitment and therefore needs to start at the beginning of a process. Ideas may originate through conversations with our partners and feedback from people such as artists and makers. We have an an Exhibitions Advisory Committee which includes representatives from across the City and wider region who are working with or as creatives, many of whom may have been traditionally under-represented in the visual arts sector. 

Our smaller gallery spaces are ideal for emerging and up-and-coming artists, and programming work in collaboration with partners such as Black Creatives and ‘creativeShift’ that responds to main exhibition themes enables us to take steps towards not just creating more opportunities for visual artists to forge careers in the city but also showing work that interests the wide range of communities that call Bristol home. 

Tell us more about your wider programme of Learning and Participation? 

The RWA boasts a significant gallery space, strong networks of talented artists, and, of course, incredible art. 

We recognise, through community feedback, that there are barriers to accessing a historic building like the RWA. Therefore, our role is to actively work with people to explore ways we can break down these barriers. This might involve taking art directly to schools or communities, or co-creating events – because art shouldn't be exclusive; it should be for everyone. 

Some of the exciting things I'm looking forward to include an interactive project all about the cosmos and outer space early in 2026, starting with Sci-Art-Tech workshops for autistic young people at RWA this autumn. 

Sharing Love is free to explore and opens 17 June 

Image credit: Lisa Whiting 

About 

Sharing Love is supported through Arts Council England funding