LEXINGTON, Ky. — The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities will host artist and educator Kimberly English as the 2026 Thomas D. Clark Lecturer in the Humanities, according to University of Kentucky News.

English's lecture, "The Shape of What's Gone: Craft, Labor, and the American South," will be held at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 23, in Room 109 of the Gray Design Building. The event is free and open to the public, though registration is encouraged through Eventbrite.

Selected by faculty member Rebekah Radtke, this year's Bingham Seminar instructor, English's lecture complements the seminar's theme, "Sustainable Design Futures Lab: Appalachia x France." The course examines sustainable design practices in post-mining communities across Appalachia and France, exploring how design can respond to environmental and cultural challenges in global contexts.

In her presentation, English will explore how textile practices interrogate American mythologies of labor, heritage and belonging, particularly in the South. Her work reconfigures traditional weaving patterns through interruption and absence, using cloth as a lens to examine relationships between land, labor and identity. English challenges nostalgic narratives of heritage craft by highlighting histories of extraction, dispossession and ecological strain often embedded within them.

English earned her Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Carolina Digital Humanities Fellow, and holds an undergraduate degree in textiles from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Spartanburg Art Museum, The Delaware Contemporary and the Museum of Craft and Design. She currently runs Tabby Studio, a weaving residency based in Canton, North Carolina.

The Thomas D. Clark Lectureship, administered by the Gaines Center, brings distinguished scholars, artists and practitioners to campus to engage with students and the broader community. For more information, contact the Gaines Center at 859-257-1537 or email Associate Director Chelsea Brislin at clbris4@uky.edu.