Anya Paintsil is a Welsh and Ghanaian artist working primarily with textiles. From rug hooking to embroidery, her assemblages evoke tactile tapestry on the one hand, and constitute semi-sculptural interventions on the other. Playful and profound, flippant and forceful, her practice engages the language of fibers — of all kinds — with interrogations of materiality and political personhood. To celebrate Anya’s new exhibition in New York, Hannah Traore, founder and director of the Hannah Traore Gallery—a space committed to advocating for artists who have been historically marginalized—invited the artist on the Gucci Podcast. The result is a conversation about Anya’s art, the meaning of hair represented in her show, and her life as a Black artist growing up in Wales for a special episode debuting during Black History month in the UK.

This episode was produced by Gucci Equilibrium, the House’s commitment to generate positive change for people and for our planet.