Skilled. Seen. 2026
Skilled. Seen. is a week-long, maker-centred exhibition celebrating women, trans and non-binary people who work with wood.
It is part of Sylva Foundation’s Woodworking & Gender Project and takes its name from two ideas that sit at the heart of the project:
Skilled speaks about craft, practice and depth of the labour itself. It is a word that recognises makers for what they do, the knowledge they hold, the judgement they develop, the material understanding they build over time, and the labour, care and creativity that go into making with wood. It pushes back against the way women and other marginalised gendered makers are often underestimated, overlooked, or spoken about as exceptions rather than as skilled practitioners in their own right.
Seen. speaks to visibility. Not just being present, but being recognised, credited and valued. Across the histories of woodworking, furniture making and allied crafts, women and gender-diverse makers have often been hidden from view, left out of records, or absorbed into stories centred on men, businesses, workshops or movements. Their work has been present, but not always seen. This exhibition is about changing that.
Together, Skilled. Seen. is both a celebration and a correction. The exhibition is designed in a deliberately different way. Rather than creating a finished show behind closed doors and then inviting people to come and look at it, we are building a show that grows as makers bring work into it. Furniture, products, and wood-based objects will arrive over several days, and the exhibition will develop as it fills. It is maker-centred rather than curator-led. That means focusing less on top-down selection, control and gatekeeping, and more on creating a generous and supportive structure in which makers decide what they want to share and how they present it.
We want people to feel that this exhibition belongs to them, not that they are being selected into someone else’s idea of what should be shown and seen. With this approach we recognise that access to visibility has never been neutral. In woodworking and furniture making, as in many other sectors, who gets recognised is shaped by who has access to training, workshop space, tools, mentorship, money, time, confidence, networks, and institutional approval. Traditional exhibitions can reinforce those inequalities by rewarding polish, prestige or familiarity with how to present oneself.
Skilled. Seen. takes a different approach. It is a free and open exhibition that invites women, trans and non-binary makers who work with wood to bring something they feel proud of. We are not asking for perfection, or a groundbreaking new “showpiece”. We are interested in authentic work that says something about a maker’s practice, their relationship with timber, tools and craft, and their feeling of belonging in the workshop environment. That might mean a finished piece of furniture, a smaller object, a workshop-made item, a prototype, a piece made in employment, or something developed through study, experimentation or self-teaching. What matters is not whether the work fits the narrow hierarchy of value, but whether it represents the maker and their relationship to wood.
This is also why the exhibition is accompanied by a Story Collection. Beyond the objects on display, we are interested in the lives, journeys and experiences behind them. We are inviting makers to share stories about how they came to woodworking, what shaped their practice, what barriers they have faced, what has sustained them, and why they continue to make. These stories create a fuller picture of who is working in wood now, and what it has taken to get there.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a programme of events, conversations and gatherings that bring together makers, students, educators, employers, industry partners and the wider public. The aim is to create connection: between people, between generations, between lived experience and professional opportunity, and between the objects on display and the larger questions they may raise.
Exhibition Catalogue
