Derick Armah
Autograph Gallery
As I Weave
An original sound work combining family recollections and memories with the act of weaving, installed in Aasha John’s As I Weave exhibition at Autograph Gallery. This body of work was curated by Jolie Hockings and displayed in June 2026.
As I Weave explores family histories of migration between Trinidad and London through the slow, tactile act of weaving and a deliberate process of deep listening. Responding to extended conversations with close family members, Aasha reassembles photographic scenes and weaves them with threads and fabrics that intersect, bind and obscure, holding a multiplicity of viewpoints. Fractured, transatlantic memories are translated into material form and shared experiences are held together as fragments, resisting their loss over time.
I was commissioned to produce the exhibition’s sound installation, which played continuously over the artworks. Across 26 minutes, I recomposed a range of audio materials into an intimate aural journey between Trinidad and London, including recordings of Aasha’s family conversations, raw sounds of her weaving and cutting processes, and original music, including abstracted steel pan and heartbeat-like drum patterns. Gaps and silences in the audio mimic Aasha’s weaving practice, threading together memories from childhood, socio-political observations and recollections of parental anxieties to form a layered work that conveys the emotional journeys being chartered.
Asked to reflect on this process, I commented; “As an audio-maker and historian, I [engage] with memories of Black life that are complex yet rich with emotion and political insight, which are made to contend with dominant narratives that flatten them. Working with these voices, I find the gaps, silences and hesitations instructive – spaces that invite me to imagine and reconstruct interior worlds through sound, which is an incredibly evocative medium. It’s a privilege and a responsibility to represent these voices, and collaborating with Aasha, who works with memories in a very different way – weaving fluid and vulnerable recollections into physical form – was a profound experience”.
Photographs by Roshad van der Pool.
The sound work was featured as a Collection Highlight in Autograph’s June 2026 newsletter – you can listen here and view the wider exhibition through Autograph’s online gallery.
Commissioned by Autograph on the occasion of Aasha John's exhibition As I Weave. Supported by Freelands Foundation.