Alice Blackstock Workshop at The Museum in the Park

By Vivienne Beaumont, 14 September 2026

There is a full programme of workshops and events at the Museum in the Park to support our exhibition, UNmaking. Alice Blackstock kicked us off with her experimental rubbings workshop!

What a wonderful, creative day with Alice! Visitors of all ages joined in for a hands-on exploration of texture and surface, creating striking rubbings using an eclectic mix of industrial equipment, unusual objects, and overlooked everyday surfaces. From children and young people experimenting alongside their families to adults discovering fresh inspiration, it was fantastic to see so many generations having fun and trying something new together. It was particularly moving to hear from one visitor who shared that she had been feeling stuck with her practice for a while; visiting the exhibition and taking part in the workshop sparked a wealth of new ideas, leaving her genuinely excited to get back to her studio and work with the marks she created.

A huge thank you to Alice for leading such a playful and engaging session, and to everyone who came along and contributed to the creative atmosphere.

Gaps in Knowledge

In restoring her vintage industrial knitting machine, Alice has unmade it, deconstructing, needle by needle. In doing so she realised two things: Firstly, there is lost knowledge of how to maintain manual equipment. Secondly, how beautiful, ambiguous and intimidating these machines are. These rubbings are Alice’s way to challenge this. By breaking it down into parts it can be read like a map. The viewer won’t fully understand how it works unless they have used one but might think ‘those skinny things with hooks could go inside the channels and maybe those springy looking bits somehow make it knit.’