CURRICULUM VITAE
Artist | Educator | Researcher
Mona is a fine artist interested in the meeting points between space, cloth, cultural stories, thread and paper.
Resume
Mona Craven is a completing practice based PhD candidate at the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham. Her research focused on the material culture of a whitework embroidered gown and an indigo resist-print cloth. Both cloths share complex colonial and postcolonial histories. In a praxis of unravelling she drew attention to a south perspective, cultural dislocation, and an entanglement between place, cloth and cultural tissue.
Mona offers a broad art and design skills-base with a resourceful, thorough approach to teaching and learning. Her practice includes facilitating research-led creative response in the arts, museums and education sector.
Qualifications
2018 – 2025
Practice-based PhD, Textile Culture (Completing)
University for the Creative Arts
2015 – 2017
MA Textiles, Post-Graduate School of Craft and Design (Distinction)
University for the Creative Arts
Post-Graduate Higher Education Diploma, Rhodes University, South Africa
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Rhodes University, South Africa
Fine Art Studies, Port Elizabeth Technikon, South Africa
Exhibitions and Publications
Exhibitions
July-Aug 2025
Soft Power, lives told though textile art, Curated by Alice kettle and Lesley Millar in collaboration with the RWA, RWA, Bristol
July-Aug 2024
InBetween Two Cloth Stories, VIVA Exhibition, James Hockey Gallery, Farnham, University for the Creative Arts
Sept-Oct 2022
About Time, Group exhibition, The Gallery at Grande Provence, South Africa
June 2022
Pins, Places, Cloth, Installation, Surrey Artists Open Studio’s 2022, Little Acres Studio’s, Rowledge
Oct-Nov 2021
Practice-as-Research, Work-in-Progress, Group Exhibition, Foyer Gallery, UCA, Farnham
Sept 2021
Continiuum@OXO 2021, Group Exhibition, Gallery@OXO, OXO Towers, London
June 2021
Framed, a window event, Installation, Sarah Louise Dix Upholstery, Surrey Artist Open Studios 2021, Godalming
Feb-Mar 2020
Shifthink, Art-textiles in the Provincial, The Victoria Institute, Arundel
Sept 2018
Continuum 2, Group Exhibition, London Design Festival, London
Sept 2017
Eleven, Group Exhibition, The Strand Gallery, London
Aug 2017
Postgraduate Exhibition, UCA, Farnham
Sept 2016
Makers at Menier, Group Exhibition, London Design Festival, London
Jun-Dec 2016
Contemporary Narratives, Crafts Study Centre (CSC) and UCA, Farnham
Residencies
2025
Artist in Residence, Ochre Print Studio, Guildford
May 2017
Artist Demonstration Day, Watts Gallery, Compton
Feb, Apr 2017
Ethel Mairet Response, Ditchling Museum, Ditchling
Publications
Sep 2019
Craven, M. (2019) Reflecting a Diaspora: In-between Whitework and Indigo.
In: Textile, Cloth and Culture.
Volume 17, 2019 – Issue 4: Textile and Place. pp. 391-401.
London, Taylor & Francis.
May 2016
Craven, M. (2016) Skirt Cloth.
In: Contemporary Narratives, School of Crafts and Design project 2015-2016 [Catalogue].
Farnham: Crafts Study Centre and University for the Creative Arts.
Conference Papers
November 2024
In Between Two Cloth Stories.
The Artist as Public Intellectual … Rememory Sankofa for an Imaginary of Ethics in Transnational Media Collaborations.
UKRI-HEIF funded event is facilitated by Developing a Media Decolonisation Imaginary (DMDI), an interdisciplinary network on ethics in transnational media research.
Aug 2022
The Culturally Dislocated Cloth – Elusive, Resistant or Interruptive.
Fashion, Photography Storytelling and Textiles, A Global Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference.
Progressive Connexions, Athens, Greece.
Oct 2021
The culturally dislocated cloth – interruptive, elusive and resistant?
Textile and Place Conference, Colonial and postcolonial narratives strand.(Online)
Manchester School of Art, (MMU) and the 2021 British Textile Biennale. Manchester.
Jan 2021
An encounter with culturally dislocated cloth.
Postcolonialism, Postcommunism and Postmodernism, 3rd International
Interdisciplinary Conference (Online).
Gdansk, Poland
Jun 2019
In-between Whitework and Indigo Resist Cloth.
Fashioning Inclusivity 2019 Symposium: Textiles and Materials strand,
University of the Arts, London
Apr 2019
Reflecting Cultural Dislocation: In-between Whitework and Indigo Resist.
Postcolonialism, Postcommunism and Postmodernism,
2nd International Interdisciplinary Conference.
Gdansk, Poland
July 2018
The artist printed-form: a craft in-between letterforms, exhibition, July 2018 audience and meaning.
Craft and Text conference: Crafts Study Centre and International Textile
Research Centre, UCA, Farnham
Apr 2018
Reflecting a Diaspora: In-Between Whitework and Indigo Resist.
Textile and Place Conference: Politics of Migration, Displacement strand.
Manchester School of Art and the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester
Accepted Abstracts
Jul/Aug 2019
The Absent Presences – In-Between Whitework and Indigo Resist
Nordic Summer University: Summer Symposium Absences and Silences
Circle 7 Artistic Research | Performing Heterotopia. Roosta, Estonia
May 2018
In-Between Whitework and Indigo Resist.
IAFOR, International Conference on Global Studies (GLOBAL2018),
Fearful Futures strand. Barcelona, Spain
Professional Development
Thinking Teaching, University of the Arts London
Photogravure, University of West England
MOMA Art & Enquiry and Museum Teaching Strategies, Coursera
Portrait Photography, University of the Arts London
Member: ACID, Museum Association