Outside / Inside – The Carnival: Stitching Story, Heritage and Voice
On 26th February, I was invited by the artist Deborah Birch to view her exhibition ‘Outside / Inside – The Carnival’ at the New Forest Heritage Centre … Writes Dee Cooper
It was a dreary day in the New Forest, low skies and muted heathland tones, but stepping into the gallery was like walking into sudden colour and movement. The room was alive. Vivid horse-head masks, bold and beautifully constructed, filled the space with presence. They felt theatrical yet intimate, suspended somewhere between costume, sculpture and living character.
Birch has always existed between performance and making. From a young age she was immersed in music and art, performing on stage while constantly drawing and sewing. Over time, storytelling through cloth and paint became more than instinct - it became a profession. Commissions in textiles and painting led her back into education in her forties, completing a master’s degree and now nearing the end of a practice-based PhD.
Yet ‘Outside / Inside’ is not an academic exercise. It is deeply personal. The title carries layered meaning. It questions who belongs within a “community” and who remains on the margins. It interrogates how Romany histories, particularly in places like the New Forest have often been documented, archived and made “official” by those outside the community itself.
For Birch, this is not abstract theory. An inaccurate account of her own family history was once published locally in the very village where they still live. Once recorded, such narratives become difficult to unpick. The private becomes public artifact and so, she stitches back.
Why Horses?
The horse is a powerful, shared symbol. In the New Forest, ponies roam freely across the landscape, constant, visible, belonging to place. For Romany culture, the horse carries deep associations of travel, livelihood, strength and story.
Installed within the Heritage Centre, the horse masks bring these worlds together. They are site-specific yet symbolic, rooted in both landscape and lineage. They speak of journeys through time, through memory, through representation. Cloth, Carnival and the Domestic Made Visible
Birch works with recycled fabrics gathered over years: dishcloths, old pillowcases, curtains, fragments of net, and pieces of her own stage wear. The materials of private domestic life is stitched together with elements of performance costume the everyday meeting the carnival.
Some fabrics and dyes carry deep personal meaning; others are fragments of anonymous cloth. All are deliberately entangled. The stitching is not decorative it is structural, metaphorical, connective. It holds together histories that are often presented as singular or fixed.
As visitors move through the exhibition, handwritten words appear directly on the walls and plinths. Birch chose not to use formal printed museum text. Instead, she inscribed her own voice into the space. Each horse mask is named, phrases that play with language and meaning. One reads “From the Horse’s Mouth,” gently questioning authority and authenticity.
A video installation offers visitors a glimpse into Birch’s studio practice the layering of cloth, the stitching, the quiet, focused labour behind the finished forms. The earliest material samples began six years ago, gradually becoming masks. Many experiments were left aside; the final collection is distilled from years of making.
Meeting Deborah herself deepens the experience. She carries a bright and caring presence, grounded and generous in conversation. Her strong sense of community is evident, as is her determination to honour and protect her Romany heritage.
Beyond her studio practice, she balances family life, four children and a dog, while running a weekly art group for adults with learning disabilities and volunteering with Southampton’s Friends of Museums, Galleries and Archives.
She is also developing a talk examining historical artworks that depict Romany, Gypsy and Traveller communities, placing them into contemporary context and questioning how they continue to shape perception.
‘Outside / Inside – The Carnival’ is open at the New Forest Heritage Centre until 1st March. The centre is open daily from 10am to 4pm.
https://www.newforestheritage.org.uk
New Forest Heritage Centre, Lyndhurst, Hampshire, SO43 7NY
On a grey February afternoon, Deborah Birch’s carnival brought colour, warmth and necessary conversation into the heart of the New Forest. And in every stitch, a quiet reclaiming.
Words and photographs by Dee Cooper for the Travellers Times