Across two weeks in The Everybody Gallery, artist Letty McHugh will develop and document a new installation for the project Fragment Unknown. Working with textiles, Letty will create a series of large, free-standing textile pieces that combine text and thread drawings.

The project draws inspiration from medieval stained glass fragments that have been shattered, salvaged, and reassembled into mosaic-like windows found in churches and buildings around the UK, including Halifax Minster and Shibden Hall. These fragments of glass are broken, but still beautiful. For Letty, their survival reflects her lived experience of chronic illness. Fragment Unknown uses symbolism to reflect on fragility and resilience, asking how we find hope in times of destruction, and inviting viewers to celebrate survival as an act of beauty and defiance.

About the Artist

Letty McHugh is an artist and writer based in West Yorkshire. Letty is currently researching healing practices in medieval monasteries and what they can teach us about living with chronic illness today.

In 2023, Letty’s self-published artist book Book of Hours (a collection of poetry, lyric essays and images), won the Barbellion Prize for Literature and was featured on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row. The same year, the Brontë Parsonage Museum commissioned Letty to create You Still Have the Sky, an artist book made up of poetry, essays, and images reflecting on her experiences of living in Haworth as a chronically ill writer.

Letty has worked with a range of organisations, including Leeds Playhouse and Tate Exchange at Tate Modern. Her installation Anchorage, a reimagining of a medieval hermitage for the modern-day sick artist, was exhibited at Attenborough Arts Centre. Letty was also commissioned by BD Is Lit to create a large-scale lighting installation for Keighley Library.

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