Australian artist & designer, Sarah Lewis founded Felt Culture in London in 2020 as one branch of her creative practice. The brand offers a range of bags made from beautiful, high-quality fabrics with a focus on sustainable production in the UK. Sarah is committed to working collaboratively with different female artists, translating their work into limited edition items that can be cherished as a 3D sensual experience.
Acting as a bridge between art and fashion, Felt Culture promotes the concept of slow fashion with the hope that the designs can be bought, cared for and passed down. As part of her commitment to supporting women’s lives in a creative context, Sarah volunteers with Fine Cell Work teaching embroidery to the women prisoners at HMP Downview.
Alongside her love of creating with her hands, Sarah continues to practice filmmaking and holds an MA in Artists Film and Moving Image from Goldsmiths College, London.
She_Curates interview with Sarah Lewis
While working with UNIT on our first collaboration, I had the chance to speak to incredible artist Sarah Lewis @feltculture about her practice, her life, and her work producing the iconic Helen Beard bag with UNIT Drops!
She describes her practice as: “Intuitive, curious, indefatigable, committed”. Speaking to Sarah was fascinating, and learning about the varied and intricate facets of her work and practice.
When describing her hopes for the future of her career, she said “There are different contexts in which I would like my work to be shown but big picture is to stay curious, committed, and connected to others. All my career expansion happens from this intention.”.
HELEN BEARD X FELT CULTURE
Felt Culture collaborates with Spacecraft.
Felt Culture worked with Australian screenprinting studio Spacecraft on a bag collaboration using the screens at Spacecraft and a Felt Culture design.
The result was a much loved addition to the Spacecraft designs in store.
This film explores the handmade screen making process for the bags starring the lovely Marina.
www.spacecraftaustralia.com
An ode to the bag……
In The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, visionary author Ursula K. Le Guin tells the story of human origin by redefining technology as a cultural carrier bag rather than a weapon of domination.
Hacking the linear, progressive mode of the Techo-Heroic, the Carrier Bag Theory of human evolution proposes ‘before the tool that forces energy outward, we made the tool that brings energy home.’ Prior to the pre-eminence of sticks, swords and the Hero’s killing tools, our ancestors’ greatest invention was the container: the basket of wild oats, the medicine bundle, the net made of your own hair, the home, the shrine, the place that contains whatever is sacred. The recipient, the holder, the story.