Threads Lab is a participatory research and making studio co-founded with Ana Flavia Fernandes in London. It grew from a question two migrants asked each other on a balcony in Kyoto: what does it take to feel at home in a city that was not built with your presence in mind? And how might participatory craft and shared making create the conditions for belonging in cities where structural exclusion is on the rise?

Tender Grounds

Tender Grounds is Threads Lab's flagship programme, delivered in partnership with Migrants in Action (MinA) and Friends of Ruskin Park. Over three workshop strands: Poetics of Memory, Botanical Cosmologies, and Mapping Belonging, the programme brought together migrant women across fourteen countries to explore belonging through shared making. Participants worked with natural dyeing, eco printing, poetry, and collaborative mapping, using craft as both a research method and a form of collective care.

The programme was built around a core conviction: belonging is not produced by a single generous encounter. It accumulates over time, or is systematically designed not to.

Outputs include the Gathering Kit, a research book, facilitation guide, toolkit, and zine — exhibited at the Understory graduate show at UAL. The project received the UAL Social Justice Award 2026.

Threads Lab also leads Supported Cities, a participatory city-making collaboration presented at the London Festival of Architecture 2026. [View project →]