The River Boundary

Anita Joice and Pippa Hetherington

Exhibition 2 – 17 May 2026 | Oxfordshire Artweeks

River Boundary brings together artists Anita Joice and Pippa Hetherington in a collaborative exhibition exploring rivers as sites of memory, movement and shifting histories. Working across painting, photography and material processes, both artists consider how landscapes hold stories, and how these stories are shaped, carried and reinterpreted over time.

Godstow, Anita Joice. Acrylic on canvas.

Though their practices differ in medium and geography, Joice and Hetherington are connected through a shared focus on the river as both a physical and symbolic presence. For Joice, the River Thames forms the basis of her work. Developed through River Project, a series of artist-led sessions for a group of participants from West Ox Arts where collective exploration traces the Thames from its source to Oxford. Her paintings emerge from direct, sustained engagement with the landscape as a place that holds the material traces of history. Observing the river over time, she explores its rhythms, openness and capacity to invite reflection and creative response.

Unsettled, Pippa Hetherington. Digitally printed cotton and embroidery.

Hetherington’s work centres on the Great Fish River in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, a place shaped by complex and contested histories. As a descendant of the British 1820 settlers, her practice reflects on post-colonial identity, inherited memory and the layered narratives embedded within the land. Working with photography alongside textiles and natural pigments made from bedrock found near the river’s banks, she creates tactile works that speak to both presence and absence, and to the histories that remain visible or are obscured.

In the Beginning, Anita Joice. Acrylic on canvas.

A significant point of connection between the artists is Gravesend, where the Thames meets the sea. It was from here that the 1820 settlers, including Hetherington’s ancestors, departed for South Africa. Both artists have visited the site individually and together, drawing inspiration from its layered histories and its role as a place of departure and transition. This shared engagement forms an important link between their practices, connecting local and global narratives through a single geographical point.

Ground to Remember #1, Pippa Hetherington. Hahnemühle archival print.

Several works in the exhibition have been developed in collaboration with the Keiskamma Art Project (KAP), a collective of artists and embroiderers based in the village of Hamburg in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, with whom Hetherington has a long-standing relationship. For over twenty-five years, KAP has created large-scale embroidered works that archive the memories and voices of communities living alongside the Keiskamma River. Through a deeply collaborative process rooted in shared making, cultural knowledge and storytelling, the project sustains vital livelihoods while bringing local histories to national and international audiences.

Together, Joice and Hetherington create a dialogue that reflects on rivers as boundaries and connectors. Rivers can divide territories, but they also carry stories, memories and movement across time and place. In The River Boundary, they are understood as dynamic spaces that shape experience and influence the ways histories are told.

This exhibition offers a space for reflection on the relationship between landscape, identity and memory, inviting visitors to consider how the environments we encounter continue to shape the narratives we inherit and pass on.

Cloister Gallery, Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum, Park Street Woodstock OX20 1SN

Open 11am – 5pm Tuesday – Saturday, and 2pm – 5pm on Sundays and Bank Holiday Monday.

Entry to this exhibition on our Cloister Gallery is free during Oxfordshire Artweeks, 2 – 17 May 2026. Admission tickets are still required to see our Main Gallery and other temporary exhibitions.