FUTURES: Foundations of Freelancing, Textiles alumna Mia Sylvia

Join us and alumna Mia to explore her work since graduation, her career and what she knows about creative risk taking.
About this Event

Join us for this years Foundations of Freelancing, a series of talks designed to help our alumni community navigate the freelance, creative world.

Each of these events ends with a social so you can chat to the speaker and network with other attendees.

Mia Sylvia Herrod is an Essex, UK-based textile artist and sculptor whose work explores transformation, regeneration, and the emotional resonance of materials. Known for her large-scale, site-specific fabric installations, Mia works with reclaimed textiles and natural dyes, creating sculptural pieces that reimagine space and transform discarded materials into poetic, immersive spatial works.

A graduate of Norwich University of the Arts, her practice is rooted in principles of sustainability and material storytelling. She uses plant matter, rusted metal, food waste, and botanicals to hand-dye textiles, producing layered, organic colour palettes that reflect cycles of decay and renewal. Her installations embrace asymmetry, movement, and negative space. Mia’s work has been shown at the Tate Modern (2019), Addenbrooke’s Hospital (2022–2023), and featured in collaborations for London Fashion Week. Her work has appeared in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Hypebae, and she was featured in The Alchemist, a short film shortlisted for the Istanbul and Cannes World Film Festivals. She is the recipient of multiple awards, including the Corporate LiveWire Global Award for Textile Designer of the Year.

As an international educator, Mia has led workshops in the UK, Armenia, Bulgaria, and Mexico, sharing natural dyeing and sustainable textile techniques. Through her artistic and educational practice, she invites audiences to reconsider value, beauty, and the life cycle of materials - blending the tactile with the transcendent.