Exhibition: Assistive Objects, 2025 by Rachael Colley

The Leather Museum is proud to present an exhibition of work by artist Rachael Colley.

During her 2025 Artist Residency at Walsall Leather Museum, generously supported by the John Feeney Trust, Heritage Crafts Association and QEST, Rachael worked with the museum’s archive and created a new body of work, responding to Walsall’s historic saddlery and lorinery trades.

Rachael has created connections between horse/human adornments and explores notions around ‘wearable control’ which reference medical assistives and refer to Rachael’s own health conditions.  As a sufferer of the autoimmune disease systemic sclerosis (SSc), a long-term chronic health condition which causes the internal atrophy of blood vessels and connective tissue throughout the body, Rachael’s work is a deeply personal response to both her own health and the museum’s collections.