Weaving Heritage & Connection | How Amanda Haran Planned A Community Art Exhibition In Derbyshire

Contemporary community textile artist Amanda Haran has written a reflective guide inspired by her exhibition Beneath Our Feet, shown at Creative Connections in Alfreton as part of the VAA OpenSpaces 2025 global art trail. The piece explores how she wove heritage, flax, and community connection into an unconventional exhibition that turned a lively tea room into a welcoming gallery space.

Amanda had just a few weeks to plan and install her show, balancing opening hours, keys, and community rhythms. With years of experience in community-led creative practice, she embraced the challenge with the same adaptability and collaboration that define her work: responsive, flexible, and full of unexpected generosity.

She transformed a cosy corner of Creative Connections into an inviting place to pause, adding a linen throw, a flax printed cushion, and a charity shop lamp to a bucket chair. A small sign encouraged visitors to sit, look & think, while a table beside it held flax fibres at different stages of growing and processing for people to touch and explore. A patch of turf beneath the chair brought Nature indoors and connected the work to the land that inspired it.

Because wall space was limited, Amanda hung additional works on wedding sign frames to showcase a range of her techniques. ‘Sometimes practicality wins the day, and sometimes it looks quite beautiful too,’ she says with a smile.

The launch of Beneath Our Feet became a genuine community gathering. Visitors shared memories of families who once worked in mills and heavy industry. Local MP Linsey Farnsworth dropped in, and one nearby venue even donated leftover food from their own event, creating what Amanda affectionately describes as ‘a schmorgasbord of treats for everyone to graze on.’

‘Being selected for VAA OpenSpaces really did spur me into action,’ Amanda explains. ‘Sometimes you just need a deadline to move from the idea in your head to something real.’

Her definition of success was simple: to go through the whole process, learn as she went, and get a few good photos if anyone turned up. The result was an exhibition full of warmth, conversation, and shared pride in Derbyshire’s heritage.

Looking ahead, Amanda plans to plant flax at Creative Connections next year, take flax processing into local schools, and work with a Somercotes historian to uncover stories about the old flax mill and Flax Croft. She is also collaborating with the Understory team at the University of Derby to map community creativity and with the Museum of Making in Derby to turn processed flax into rope, closing the loop that first sparked the project.

She laughs that she may have already put it out to the universe that sowing flax on the disused site of Butterley Iron Works would be quite the full circle moment. ‘Perhaps global flax domination isn’t so far fetched after all,’ she adds.

Get Involved & Share Your Flax Memories

Amanda is gathering stories, photographs, and memories about flax in Amber Valley. If you would like to share a memory, have memorabilia to show, or be involved in flax planting next year at Creative Connections, please get in touch at amandaharan0@gmail.com.

🌿 Read More

You can read Amanda’s full blog feature, Weaving Heritage & Connection | How I Planned A Community Art Exhibition In Derbyshire, at
amandaharan.co.uk/post/derbyshire-amber-valley-contemporary-community-textile-artist-exhibition-how-to-guide