PORTLAND, ORE.- Over the last thirty years, celebrated British textile artist Freddie Robins has garnered a reputation as a “radical” knitter—a conceptual materialist whose handmade objects and assemblages are as political as they are humorous, and spiritual. Robins explains: “Knitting is my way of interpreting and coming to terms with the world that I inhabit. It sits between my internal world and the physical world, like a form of comfort, or rather, discomfort. My knitting practice questions conformity and notions of normality. I use knitting to explore both contemporary gender and the human condition.”
Gazing upon Robins’s soft constructions arouses a dreamy return to childhood. Absorbing the work slows our perception of time, and as we concede to knitting’s temporality, an internalized softness ensues—the supple experience of attention. Knitting is a form of historically gendered labor like any other, except that knitting’s labor consists of intimate, ritualized encounters between the body and materiality. Robins’s hands touch each strand as she loops them through her fingers like locks of hair.
The history of knitting is an ancient one, and fashioning protective spells was just as important as producing garments for physical warmth. The title of the exhibition—Apotropaic—is a Greek word meaning to “turn away from” or “avert.” It refers to amulets and talismans that protect the wearer from harmful acts and intentions. Some of the oldest apotropaic objects—like the Egyptian Eye of Horus—were found tucked into the linen wrappings of pharaonic mummies.
For ages, villagers across England secreted talismanic bundles made of unguents, herbs, and clothing under the floorboards and into the walls of their dwellings. Robins’s own apotropaic collection snakes through her home—an interior alleyway of glass cases resembling nineteenth-century shop fixtures. Each morning Robins walks the land around their farm, collecting natural and manufactured treasures, such as toys, dolls, brooms, amulets, pipes, office supplies, and other curiosities.
Robins and her husband, painter Ben Coode-Adams, are founding members of the Blackwater Polytechnic—an exhibiting collective and informal educational establishment based in North Essex. The Polytechnic’s activities include exhibition making, art making, construction, farming, forestry, craft, and collecting, with a focus on locality and collaboration. Seeking to bring Blackwater’s holistic methodologies to communities around the world, the collective has exhibited and worked across the UK and in Berlin, Scandinavia, and New York. The Blackwater Polytechnic is based in a sixteenth-century timber-framed barn in rural North Essex, renovated by Robins and Coode-Adams.
Apotropaic is part of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art's 2025 Time-Based Art Festival. A full-color exhibition catalog will be released in December 2025. Published by the Cooley, the catalog will include essays by Robins, Tate Britian curator Linsey Young, and Apotropaic curator Stephanie Snyder. It also includes a conversation between the artist and visit organizer Kris Cohen, professor of art history.
UK textile artist Freddie Robins (b. 1965, Hitchin, Hertfordshire) lives in Essex and works in London, where she is Professor of Textiles at the Royal College of Art. Robins received an MA in Knitted Textiles from the Royal College, and a BA in Constructed Textiles from Middlesex Polytechnic, London. At the RCA, Robins co-leads the Royal College’s Material Engagements Research Cluster.
Robins has exhibited her work widely, both within the UK and internationally, and has created and participated in numerous workshops and activities with knitting at their core. She has held exhibitions and presented knitting projects at museums and spaces including the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; the Crafts Council Gallery, London; Museum Bellerive, Zurich; and the Milan Triennial, Italy. Robins’s work is held in collections including those of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Government Art Collection, London; Crafts Council, London; Nottingham Castle Museum, UK; Aberdeen Art Gallery, Scotland; Kode, Bergen, Norway; Spring Studios, London; Szombathely Art Gallery, Hungary; and in private collections in the UK, Turkey, the United States, and Australia.
Freddie Robins comes to Reed as a Stephen E. Ostrow Distinguished Visitor in the Visual Arts. The program was established by Edward and Sue Cooley and John and Betty Gray, in honor of art historian Dr. Stephen E. Ostrow, for his role in designing the Cooley Gallery, and for supporting the teaching of art history as part of the humanities. The Ostrow program brings to campus creative people who are distinguished in connection with the visual arts and who will provide a forum for conceptual exploration, challenge, and discovery. Past recipients who also developed exhibitions with the Cooley include: Gregg Bordowitz; David Reed; Senga Nengudi and Maren Hassinger; Pato Hebert and Sarah Gilbert; Thomson and Craighead; Terry Winters; Kara Walker, and Mona Hatoum.
