Jean OberlanderArtist / Educator / Writer
Originally from North Berwick, Scotland, she graduated from Gray’s School of Art and then went on to complete an MA in Textiles from the Royal College of Art in 2019. She currently works at Girlguiding as a Project Coordinator for Programme.
Her work finds the intersection between memory, love and softness. She finds joy in combining the written word, drawing, research and making as a repeating cyclical process that uses and hacks knitting and sewing techniques by hand and machine. Recalling memories into mark-making, then translated onto and into paper, knit and fabric, then digitised and returned back to paper in a spiral of storytelling. Stitches, loops and fabric become part of a map, an archive for the memories that are real and unreal.
She has been invited to conferences, such as the In The Loop 10 Knitting Conference, and spoken at Peckham Craft Show about knitting and making alongside Ruby Smith, who she works alongside with to create a research blog and podcast called Soft Thoughts that looks into our relationships with textiles. She was more recently awarded a scholarship to attend the Penland School of Craft Textiles Residency in January 2023.
Jean has volunteered in her local communities as a Guide Leader with Girlguiding since 2011, committing time to help girls flourish and find their passions in life by passing on her knowledge in participatory arts and crafts and youth engagement.
She currently volunteers with a unit she started in 2018 in South London and received a Jack Petchey Leader award for her commitment to Guiding in the community in 2021. She was selected to attend as a delegate of Girlguiding UK to the Juliette Low Seminar 2022 and through that has been supported to develop and manage a 100 Girls Project, Make, Do, Lead, to inspire creative and critical thinking mindsets in girls and young women, which reached 216 girls in London throughout 2023. She was also selected to join the GOLD (Guiding Overseas Linked with Development) Madagascar project in Summer 2023. At the moment, she is the Young Leader Coordinator for London South West, engaging young external volunteers and helping retain girls in Girlguiding.
