Amber Roper is a textile and mixed media artist based in London whose practice explores expression through colour, composition and texture. Working intuitively, she builds layers, is bold with colour and experimental with textures that build depth and density. Threads are wrapped, woven and interlaced into unexpected forms that speak to both fragility and strength, while keeping a playful element within her creative process.

A Thread That Binds Us is a series of two works commissioned by Bethlem Gallery as part of ‘Family Footsteps’, a collaborative research project with the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London. The series explores intergenerational mental health and parents’ beliefs and concerns about mental wellbeing within families.

Amber worked alongside parents in creative research workshops, incorporating processes of collaging and yarn wrapping, and exploring words that reflected on personal family photographs. These shared making sessions created space for reflection and dialogue, enabling participants to voice lived experiences of mental health across generations.

Soft Threads, Soft Truths 

Soft Threads, Soft Truths is a tufted wool rug tapestry exploring connection, care and the quiet strength within families. 

The colour palette was developed in response to feelings shared by parents during workshops, and words contributed by participants emerge alongside vibrant textures, creating a layered reflection on family strength, care, and support.

The title speaks to threads as both material and metaphor. As fibres intertwine, they reflect family narratives of memory, support and shared experience. Through layering wool, colour and text, the work holds these stories together, suggesting how resilience can be nurtured and passed across generations.

Participatory Artwork

Over a series of artist-led creative research workshops, Amber created and held a supportive space, working alongside parents and family members through yarn wrapping, collage, and family photographs as tools for reflection and conversation around lived experiences of mental health.

This participatory artwork invites visitors to add their own threads to ‘A Thread That Binds Us’, extending this dialogue.

By contributing your own material, gesture or thread, question or single word, you become part of this evolving conversation. Each addition interlaces personal experience with collective memory – a reminder that mental health is shaped within relationships, and that understanding grows through shared acts of making.

Over time, the installation evolves into a collective artwork shaped by many hands, revealing how individual voices can intertwine to form a shared and supportive network.