Curated and commissioned by Company, Place, 'Aberfeldy Stories: Colours of Home’ by Lola Lely was a textile art installation that connected and celebrated the local businesses, residents landscape and the textile history of Aberfeldy Village.

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Hemp cloth banners, naturally dyed, weather-proofed with wax and adorned with tassels made from remnants were installed as a trail across the Village.  This low-waste, hyper-localised manufacturing project sought to minimise the environmental impact of a large-scale art installation in the public realm.  The patterns included motifs inspired by natural and architectural features of the local area. Key design elements of the banners were produced on-site through a series of free community workshops led by Alisa Ruzavina and Hayley Caine, these included foraging for natural dyeing materials – such as local plants and kitchen waste to create a community colour swatch book – and tassel making.  The workshops also held space for knowledge exchange beyond natural dyeing, recipes were swapped and stories from home told.

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This thoughtful design and the experimental processes involved not only demonstrated Lely's achievements as a maker whose work focuses on the interconnection between the natural world and material culture, but also created space to reflect on the inherent sustainability of large-scale public art installations, providing a model of how these could be achieved differently in the future.