Top gallery displays the work of local artists

Deaf and hard of hearing women from Ealing had their artistic creations put on display at a top London gallery.

The women meet weekly in the Independent Learning Centre at Bayham Road in west Ealing and showed their work at the Wallace Collection gallery in Central London.

They took over a downstairs gallery at the world famous attraction to exhibit a specially created collection of needlework tapestries which they have been working on for 5 weeks, - all inspired by paintings in the actual gallery.

The display celebrates the embroidery work created by the West Ealing Deaf and Hard of Hearing Women’s group as part of the Wallace Collection’s Embroidery project.

The aim of the project was to use objects from the museum as inspiration to create embroidery work.

Over the course of five weeks, the Ealing based group, visited the museum, learnt embroidery techniques and created their own pieces. 

Seventeen women participated in the workshops, many from different cultures including – Pakistani, Indian, Somali, Malaysian, Ugandan.

Ealing Central and Acton’s new Labour MP also attended and the gathering was addressed by group leader, Janine Volossevich and the Wallace Collection’s Edwina Mileham who learnt sign language during the course of the project so was able to simultaneously sign as well as do her speech.

Rupa said “it was inspiring and a proud moment to see that the women of W13 have overcome barriers to exhibit their work in one of London’s top artistic collections, long may they continue”.

The women who participated in the project were:

Ashima Sethi, Fadumo Ainab, Florence Lee, Goodo Ali, Herwinder Tiwana, Irene Alizalwa, Julie Harris,  Kusam Khullar, Muna Mohamed, Neila George, Premila Bhudia, Satwant Verma, Shilla, Susie Leong, Veena Haryal, Zaibunissa Bakhsh, Janine Volossevich.

The Freelancer Educator, Trish Bishop

The Group leader, Janine Volossevich 

The Ealing Centre for Independent Living

4th August 2015