Photos by Pine Agency ( @wearepine )
Exhibition text: Port to Port
Produced by The Art Station in partnership with First Light Festival, SPILL Festival, and Hamilton MAS and supported by Arts Council England and Suffolk County Council.
Port to Port at The Hold is an ambitious, travelling installation project by artist Sophie Giller creating a journey connections between the three Suffolk ports. The artwork began its journey in Lowestoft in June 2025, and is now here in Ipswich for SPILL Festival October 2025 and will travel to Felixstowe next year 2026.
The beautiful centre-piece of the project is a large-scale installation composed of sail-shaped patchworks. Each sail is created with local community who contribute personal memories, images, and objects. These elements are printed, collaged, drawn, and stitched onto textiles to form richly layered and deeply personal patchwork pieces.
Rooted in the heritage of Suffolk’s port towns, Port to Port celebrates both the region’s maritime past and the collective experiences of the people who live there. Drawing on traditional crafts and storytelling, the project creates a moving visual archive of place, memory, and identity. As the installation travels from one port to the next, it will evolve to reflect the unique stories and contributions of each community, becoming a dynamic portrait of Suffolk’s coastal life and culture.
Sophie Giller and Holly Scholfield (artist and Port to Port project manager) led workshops, including ceramic tile-painting, linocut printmaking, and screen printing, with Suffolk Refugee Support, Benhall Primary School, and other local community in Ipswich.
Benches
The benches in the installation were made by Sophie’s family. Simon Giller, a tree surgeon, felled and milled the trees in three of the benches. Oak, Douglas Fir, and Cedar wood have been carefully crafted with Sophie’s designs to make functional benches influenced by boats, jetties, and the natural patterns in the wood. Andrew Giller has carefully inset tiles from the art workshops into the ceramic tile bench, which draws on the shapes of boat portholes and seaside amusements. The benches invite the audience to sit and experience the variety of images, textures, designs, and creative processes in the sails.
Sails
The sail installed on the ground near the café contains images, memories, and stories contributed by local people in Ipswich. Another, hung up on the first left through the main door, was made by working with Lowestoft residents. On the ground, the terracotta sail with the wooden bench contains contributed imagery from both Lowestoft and Ipswich, which was inspired by a sailing trip, organised by The Art Station for Port to Port’s team and participants, on National Historic Ship Excelsior, a restored 1921 Lowestoft fishing smack.
The second sail hung high is from a mono printing workshop, with translucent panels which echo back to the glass plates they were printed on. Behind this is the linocut sail, inspired by Victor, a sailing barge built in 1895 at Dock End Yard, was created with workshop attendees’ plate-carving and printing.
Sophie attended a ropemaking workshop with Robert Harboard in partnership with The Excelsior Trust charity, learning about knots, splicing, fibres, and the maritime histories. Sophie and Holly have made a new sail inspired by this endangered heritage craft, the blue and white colours of Ipswich’s marina, football club, and coat of arms.
Hung next to the library is the blue cyanotype sail, where the fabric was painted with chemicals in the dark before imagery contributed by community participants was transferred by sunlight through a glass plate and printed acetate. The sail hung high up at the back of The Hold highlights the heritage of Ipswich, influenced by visits to Christchurch Mansion, Sutton Hoo, and Suffolk Archives.
Sophie Giller 