Grace Emily Manning (right)

Grace Emily Manning is a multimedia textile artist and maker whose site-specific practice directly responds to landscape, ecology, folklore, and community co-creation. Frequently working with natural dyes, plant pigments, and reclaimed textiles, Grace has crafted large-scale public art installations across the UK, including long-standing design contributions for Glastonbury Festival. For the Sondering Festival, she is the co-creator and facilitator behind the Patchwork Sondering Shroud, providing a low-pressure, tactile making space that invites participants to slow down, share presence, and stitch collective offerings into an evolving communal artifact.

Sita Brahmachari (left)

Sita Brahmachari is an award-winning children's and young adult author and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature whose evocative storytelling frequently centers on themes of grief, healing, identity, and environmental connection. Her acclaimed novel Kite Spirit serves as the core creative and emotional inspiration for this year's Patchwork Sondering Shroud interactive textile project. While Sita is unable to attend the festival in person this year, her narrative motifs, tactile prompts, and recorded audio will deeply anchor the making space, and she looks forward to joining the festival next year to see the shroud as it continues to grow over time.