Mary Whitehouse United Kingdom

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Mary Whitehouse is an emerging textile artist living in York. She is currently studying for a BA in Textiles Practice at Bradford School of Art. She uses discarded materials to create pieces of work that challenge people to think about issues of social justice.

I am an activist, seeking to raise issues of social justice through textile art by giving a voice to those who suffer injustices, and speaking truth to power through my work. With an interest in the history of patchwork and quilting as the background for my textile art, recent works have taken traditional techniques and designs and subverted them to make people look twice. I combine repurposed textiles with newspaper to create pieces that have echoes of the comfort of a patchwork quilt, but also signify the urgency of the issues that face us today. A recent work, Uprooted, was a response to Hallville, a Canadian Red Cross Quilt in the Quilters’ Guild Quilt Collection. The original Hallville quilt was made by women in Canada and was given to a family in London, who had been displaced by the Blitz in World War 2. My response was made to draw attention to the continuing plight of refugees uprooted by war and famine. The work was accepted into the Quilt Collection in September 2025. Alongside creating work that raise issues of social justice, I also work with community groups, including refugees and asylum seekers, using stitching as a tool for bringing people