Emma Whitehead is a textile artist, designer & teacher from County Down, Northern Ireland. She transforms fibre, recycled textiles and found objects to explore the transitory nature of our personal histories and memories. She uses maps, paper ephemera and mementoes in conjunction with hand-dyed material and yarns to create totems that reflect the connections people have with each other and their geography, the journeys during their life, and how they mark significant events.

Primarily a surface embroiderer, most of Emma’s work is created using a needle and thread, hand sewing being one of the oldest, simplest, and truly transformative mobile technologies still in use today.

She is co-director of the artist-led gallery Top Floor Art Gallery & Open Studios and runs the TFA Studio Group. In 2019 she received the IDA Award from the University of Atypical to research & develop new ways of working adapted to disability.