Toni Buckby
PhD Student, V&A / Sheffield Hallam University
tonibuckby@tonibuckby.com
Re-embroidering Blackwork: unpicking the museum collection through contemporary art practice
I am a Sheffield-based fine artist working with traditional textile techniques, experimental digital technologies, and acts of collective making. My work explores ideas of skilled practice, the value of labour, the visibility of authorship, and the creation and accessibility of practical knowledge. Specialising in fine hand embroidery, I am currently working on a collaborative PhD between Sheffield Hallam University and the V&A, exploring how fine art practice can be used to investigate, reconstruct, interpret, and present fragile and inaccessible blackwork embroideries.
I have participated in a number of residencies, exhibitions, and festivals including Digital Media Labs (2015), Sonic Pattern Residency (2015), AlgoMech Festival (2016/2017/2019), No Bounds Festival (2017), Making Ways (2019) and Leeds International Festival (2019). My installation, INTERLACE (a large scale electronic textile work, made in collaboration with local volunteers), is part of the permanent display at the Derby Silk Mill Museum of Making.
My supervisors are Penny McCarthy and Dr Yuen Fong Ling from Sheffield Hallam University, Dr Becky Shaw, Birmingham City University, and Dr Susan North, V&A.