Strands of Sustainability
East Sussex artists Antonia Chitty and Julie Gurr present STRANDS at DEPO Hastings as part of the Coastal Currents Arts Festival 2026. The exhibition brings together contemporary fibre art and sculptural willow work shaped by traditional craft and sustainable practice. STRANDS invites visitors to see traditional techniques and natural materials afresh as Chitty and Gurr transform fibre and willow into contemporary sculptural forms.
Textile artist Antonia Chitty with crochet creations
Antonia Chitty is a textile and freeform fibre artist based in East Sussex. Her work brings together memory and landscape along with the tactile possibilities of yarn. She draws inspiration from the sea, the countryside, and personal histories held within places and families. Using traditional crochet techniques and rich textural experimentation, she builds three-dimensional surfaces of ridges, waves, bobbles and open stitches that echo natural forms and layered personal stories.
Her choice of yarn is central to the process: hand-dyed local wool, leftover fibres, unusual textures and small remnants become part of the narrative, reflecting her interest in slow craft and the beauty that emerges when materials guide the making.
After years of making traditional functional baskets, Julie Gurr now experiments with innovative sculptural pieces. Her fluid forms and hangings draw on traditional basketry techniques, adapted to suit each design and material. Julie grows or forages all her materials, including willow cultivated, without chemicals, on land at the edge of Romney Marsh.
Growing varieties and colours that are not available commercially gives her an intimate connection to the material, through yearly cycles of cultivation and harvest. Her work is inspired by the natural colours of willow and by basketry traditions from around the world.
Suzan Aral, Director of MAKU UK, says: “MAKU’s aim from the start has been to ‘make use, not waste’ and to encourage others to do the same. Our Hastings headquarters, DEPO, is both a workspace and a venue where people with shared values can host events. To date, DEPO has hosted pop-up sales, sewing groups, art classes, and exhibitions, all with sustainability at their core.”
DEPO, 2A Elphinstone Road, Hastings TN34 2EE. Exhibition open 12-13 and 26-27 September, 11.00am–4.00pm. Instagram @antoniachitty, antoniachitty.co.uk
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