| Jessica Hemmings | |
| Birth Place: | Wales, United Kingdom |
| Nationality: | British |
| Alma Mater: | Rhode Island School of Design University of London University of Edinburgh |
| Occupation: | Academic, writer |
Jessica Hemmings is a British academic and writer.
Born in Wales, Hemmings spent her childhood in Indonesia and America. She graduated with a BFA in Textile Design from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1999 and an MA in Comparative Literature from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies in 2000. Her PhD, awarded by the University of Edinburgh in 2006, is published by Kalliope paperbacks under the title, Yvonne Vera: The Voice of Cloth (2008).
Hemmings is currently a Professor of Craft, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Previous academic appointments include Professor of Visual Culture and Head of the School of Visual Culture at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin (2012-2016); Deputy Director of Research and Head of Context, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh (2010-2012); Associate Director of the Centre for Visual & Cultural Studies, Edinburgh College of Art (2008-2010); Reader in Textile Culture, Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, England (2008). She is a member of the editorial boards of TEXTILE: the journal of cloth & culture (Taylor & Francis)[1] [2] and Craft Research (Intellect).[3]
As a writer, she has published Warp and Weft: Woven Textiles in Fashion, Art and Interiors (2012) and Yvonne Vera: The Voice of Cloth (2008), and edited three books. Based on her editorial project Cultural Threads, Hemmings curated Migrations, an international traveling exhibition (2015-2017).[4] [5] The Cultural Threads book inspired Dutch curator Liza Swaving’s exhibition of the same name held at the TextielMuseum, Tilburg, the Netherlands (24 November – 12 May 2019).[6]
2020–2023 Rita Bolland Fellowship at the Research Centre for Material Culture, the Netherlands [8]
Universidad de Sevilla, Spain (2023),[9] Nordic Textile Art Network, Reykjavik, Iceland (2019),[10] Zeitz MOCCA, Cape Town, South Africa (2018),[11] University of British Columbia, Canada (2017),[1] ObjectSpace, New Zealand (2016),[12] Design Canberra Festival, Australia (2015), SOFA Chicago New Voices Lecture (2012),[13] Cranbrook Academy of Art (2012)[14] INIVA, London (2009).[15]