Subversive Threads

Exhibition

14 July

Rae Haynes 
17 October - 22 November 2025

Subversive Threads is a new solo exhibition by artist Rae Haynes, presented at Outer Space. Known for a contemporary feminist practice that interrogates gender ethics and the language of abstraction through text-based works, textiles, and installation, Haynes brings together personal history and political inquiry in this exhibition.

The work emerges from Haynes’ research into the legacies of embroidery in feminist art, particularly through the lens of Rozsika Parker’s seminal text The Subversive Stitch (1984). This inquiry led to the discovery of genealogical connections to Mary Linwood (1755–1845), a pioneering British textile artist and educator renowned for her 'needle painting' technique and public exhibitions in 19th-century London. Further archival investigation revealed that in the 1890s, Haynes’ ancestors Claudia and Ada Hull established Linwood College in Bulanaming/Marrickville, named in honour of Mary Linwood.

Through feminist, genderqueer, and decolonial methodologies, Haynes explores these familial and creative legacies via archival research, auto-theoretical storytelling, and participatory workshops. The project reframes embroidery as both a personal and political tool of resistance.

The exhibition is informed by extensive research conducted at leading UK institutions and recent specialised training in hand embroidery at the Royal School of Needlework, underpinning the creation of this new body of work.

Rae Haynes (she/ they) is a contemporary artist and educator who lives and works in Meanjin/ Brisbane, Australia. Rae’s art practice engages with feminist archives, collective agency and care ethics by examining the social and personal constructs of language and gender. Rae completed a Doctor of Philosophy in Visual Arts (2009) with the support of an Australian Postgraduate Award for research at the Queensland University of Technology, and is now a Senior Lecturer (Contemporary Art/ Visual Arts) at QUT.

@rachahaynes