Working with garments that belong to individuals as well as items in museum archives, Pym has broad experience with stories of damage, from moth holes to accidents with fire. Textile language crops up in the body: mending language works on the body as well as on garments. We describe the body as mending after illness or injury – ‘I’m on the mend,’ someone might say if they’re feeling better. You might hear a doctor or nurse describe a broken bone as ‘mending well’, or broken bones are often described as knitting back together as the break heals.
Celia Pym has a BA in Visual and Environmental Studies, specialising in sculpture, from Harvard University, US and an MA in Constructed Textiles from the Royal College of Art, London. She is also a trained nurse, where she honed her caring skills.
Her work has been exhibited most recently at Now Gallery, North Greenwich, 2025, in Keep Being Amazing, Firstsite, Colchester, Essex (2022), Say Less, Herald Street, London, 2022 and Eternally Yours, Somerset House, London 2022.
Waste Age, Design Museum, London (2021), and On Happiness: Joy + Tranquillity, Wellcome Collection, London (2021). Siblings, Trading Museum, CDG, Paris (2020), Sewing Box for the Future, V&A Dundee (2020-21) and Material Matters, Textilmuseum, St Gallen (2020). In 2017 she was shortlisted for the Woman’s Hour Craft Prize and the inaugural Loewe Craft Prize. She is an Associate Lecturer in Textiles at the Royal College of Art in London.