Doorstep to Net Curtain

Net Curtain is a result of the Doorstep project created by Cash Aspeek for Redstart Arts. It was funded by Arts Council England in association with, and supported by, The Horniman Museum and Gardens.

Doorstep was a series of weekly art workshops undertaken over a period of four months in 2020/21 where Cash visited the doorsteps of ‘the Redstarts’ (learning disabled artists) and their family members with weekly art packs to ignite their interest and curiosity into the many ways animals protect themselves from their external world and the predators therein. The aim was for ‘the Redstarts’ to create art in a variety of media, responding to animals exhibited in the Natural History gallery of the Horniman Museum. The animals studied all have naturally different ways of protecting themselves which highlighted the wonders of the animal kingdom and juxtaposed this at a time when we humans are so vulnerable and can only protect ourselves using science and man-made objects.

The images that they produced were then transferred to cloth - the net curtain - and embroidered with the support of a group of volunteers. The embroideries were cut into portholes and stitched onto the net curtain, representing another way humans in urban environments protect themselves from their external world.