In 2018, Ryde Arts commissioned local artists Abi Wheeler and Carol Ann Eades to lead their participatory textile project Threads. Against a backdrop of regeneration planning in Ryde, the work was being made at a time of transition. A team of volunteers diligently worked to represent Ryde’s natural and urban landscape in rust and indigo dyeing workshops. Through the process of stitching in library drop-in sessions, others meticulously recorded the town’s inhabitants. 

The 2011 census data informed the structural design and content of a three dimensional hanging that became part of the library’s permanent collection. The sixty-two subsets of Ryde’s five wards are represented by shapes taken from maps that visually define each local area. Each individual resident is represented by one stitch.