After a short pause, we’re pleased to announce that Soft Ground will be recommencing on 31 July until 11 September 2026.

Soft Ground is a programme of free weekly drop-in textile-based art sessions designed to support mental wellbeing through creativity, routine, and communal making. Drawing from neurodivergent practices and trauma-informed methodologies, these sessions are open to everyone, with a particularly warm welcome extended to neurodivergent participants.

The programme offers a gentle, sensory-aware, and low-pressure environment where you can engage with textile processes at your own pace, using tactile making as a tool for self-soothing, co-regulation, and creative exploration.

For this next chapter, we’re joined by textile artists Sue Mayo and Jenny McIlhatton, who will each lead a series of mindful, relaxing workshops using recycled materials and fashion waste.

Sessions follow a consistent weekly format designed to create structure and accessibility, particularly for those who experience anxiety, sensory overload, or social isolation. While the programme centres neurodivergent experiences, it is open to anyone in the local community interested in creativity as a pathway to wellbeing.

The programme will be taking place every Friday from 2-4pm at SET Social. Please note that there will be no session on 21st August. All sessions are free to attend and conclude with refreshments, creating a relaxed space for conversation and connection.

Programme schedule and facilitators

Sue Mayo

Friday 31 July & Friday 7 August (2-4pm)

Sue works with recycled and preloved materials. In these sessions, participants will explore ways of joining materials together by connecting images, words and objects to create handmade bunting, garlands and hangings. The workshops will introduce simple plaiting and weaving techniques, as well as the use of air-dry clay to make buttons and beads. Participants will also create images and poems by cutting, rearranging and reworking magazines and newspapers. The sessions will focus on making, sharing and connecting materials, with the aim of creating decorations for the body, the home and public spaces. The workshops are designed to be welcoming and flexible, allowing participants to join in at their own pace, take breaks when needed, and make work for themselves and others.

Jenny McIlhatton

14, 28 August, 4 and 11 September (2-4pm)

Jenny is an artist specialising in textiles, with a background in fashion, repurposing fashion waste and found objects in her practice. Through this series of workshops, participants are invited to embrace the Japanese principles of wabi-sabi: the idea that something showing wear or age does not always need to be replaced. All the materials used throughout the workshops come from fashion industry waste. The playful samples of stitching and weaving produced across the sessions will help participants explore how processes of restoration can enhance beauty. Jenny will share simple, mindful stitch exercises, using rhythm and repetition to slow down and create a meditative experience. Participants will create memory collages, intuitively selecting textures and colours to appliqué, stitch, or weave.

Event details

Dates: Every Friday, from 31 July – 11 September (no session on 21 August)
Times: 2-4pm
Where: SET Social, 55a Nigel Road, Peckham, SE15 4NP
Admission: Free

Book ticket

Programme credits

The programme is curated by Sylvia Keck, Community Engagement Curator at Looking Forward. It is realised in partnership with SET and thanks to the support of the National Lottery Community Fund.

About the organiser: Founded in 2019, Looking Forward works internationally across contemporary art, design, and socially engaged practices. As curators and cultural producers, they bring together artists, researchers, institutions, and publics through medium and long-term projects that span exhibitions, publishing, public programming, outreach, communication and critical research.