I'm Only Human

I'm Only Human is an ongoing multidisciplinary textile project that began as an exploration of crisis asking how we respond in times of uncertainty, and the everyday objects we turn to for warmth, protection, and comfort.

Working with blankets sourced from charity shops, friends, and family, I cut out and constructed life-sized human forms. Many of the blankets carried their own histories. Some had been passed down through generations, holding memories of care, loss, and complex family relationships.

The resulting works reflect the fragility and resilience of human existence. Like the blankets from which they are made, we are shaped by memory, relationships, and lived experience. Fragmented yet continually reconstructed, the figures speak of mortality, change, preservation, and renewal, revealing how our identities are continually remade over time.

Participants were invited to lie on large sheets of paper while I traced the outlines of their bodies. These life-sized drawings became templates from which the textile forms were cut.

As the project developed, I began experimenting with different ways of displaying and transforming the figures. Initially laid directly on the floor, they were later suspended within the gallery to create a forest-like environment through which visitors could move.

Live Artist Victoria Bone with the figures.

@Victoria_bone_artist.

In another iteration figures were hung from bicycle wheels to catch the shadows.

The shifting shadows were traced and redrawn, extending the work beyond the physical figure to explore those aspects of ourselves that remain unseen—hidden from others and, at times, from ourselves.

Elsewhere, I assembled the forms into large and small collages.

I also buried figures beneath the earth to explore the effects of time and soil on the fabric. The decayed fragments were later carefully reconstructed using textile conservation techniques and have become a seperate piece of work called the Buried Sarahs, go to And so it ends for more details.