Catherine Joy White - This Thread of Gold Installation Interview

Throughout October, Chichester Festival Theatre is proud to host a transformative interactive installation inspired by This Thread of Gold, the award-winning book by author, filmmaker, and scholar Catherine Joy White. Free and open to all in the foyer space, the exhibition celebrates the pioneering Black women who reshaped British theatre, not only through iconic performances, but as playwrights, directors, producers, and community builders who created opportunities where none existed.

Catherine Joy White

Alongside the exhibition, Catherine Joy White will take part in an exclusive live in-conversation event hosted by entrepreneur and author Jessica Huie MBE. Together, they will explore the themes of This Thread of Gold—a lyrical celebration of Black women who have challenged expectations across film, politics, and activism—and how each of us carries forward our own thread of gold.

Ahead of the event and installation, we sat down with Catherine to discuss the power of history, representation behind the scenes, and what it means to build a lasting legacy in British theatre.

You are launching this exhibition during Black History Month. What does it mean to offer a free, accessible space for the public to engage with these stories throughout October?
It is something that was always so important to me. Firstly, to make these stories accessible beyond the audience who might already know them, but then also to widen the scope of who might be able to visit an exhibition or theatre in the first place! The cost of living crisis means that for so many people right now, the arts are a luxury, not an essential. I believe that everyone should have access to an exhibition like this and the fact that we have been able to make sure it is free and is there throughout October means that anyone can simply walk into the theatre, encounter these women and spend as much or as little time with them as they like.

I’m really proud of that. You don’t need to have read This Thread of Gold or know anything about British theatre history to engage with it. Hopefully someone might come in because they are seeing a show at CFT or meeting a friend for coffee and then leave having discovered a woman whose story stays with them.

This Thread of Gold began as a celebrated book. How do you approach translating its themes into a physical exhibition, and how did Chichester Festival Theatre become the home for this project?
This Thread of Gold was always about connection for me. It connects the threads between women across generations and the ways that we can all be inspired by them today. An exhibition felt like a beautiful way of making those invisible connections visible.

I wanted people to be able to physically move through those stories and so we have all of these different elements: the portraits, the Golden Thread installation, the talk and even the theatre itself all become part of the storytelling.

Chichester feels like the perfect home because this project grew out of my own relationship with theatre. It is the place I made my professional debut, in Laura Wade’s The Watsons and then, in a full circle moment, I had just finished playing Ruby in Martina Laird’s Driftwood at the RSC, which was directed by CFT’s Artistic Director Justin Audibert when Justin invited me to bring This Thread of Gold to Chichester. Now Martina Laird is one of the women I honour in the exhibition. The book was about women who had made space for people like me, and suddenly I was being invited into a theatre to make space for their stories. 

Rather than a standard chronological timeline, the exhibition highlights intergenerational connections. How did you choose the women featured, and how do their journeys speak to one another?
This Thread of Gold isn’t a chronological book. I draw connections between women from across timelines, geography and situation. Instead, the book is organised somewhat thematically into ‘reclamation, recreation and resilience’

So I already knew with the exhibition I didn’t want to create a chronological list of “important” women. I was much more interested in the relationships between their stories and in what each woman can say to us today.

The connections were just singing out to me: Women creating platforms, challenging who gets to tell stories,  building careers in spaces that weren't necessarily designed with them in mind and always leaving a legacy of hope.

They also represent different forms of theatre-making: acting, writing, directing, producing, broadcasting, institution-building. I wanted to show that changing culture isn’t built in just one way.

How does focusing on British theatre specifically expand or deepen the conversation about Black womanhood that you initiated in your book?
Theatre gives you a very particular way of thinking about representation because it is literally about who gets to stand in a room, whose story gets spoken, who gets to write it, who gets to direct it and who gets to decide what an audience sees. That makes British theatre a fascinating lens through which to explore Black womanhood. These women weren't simply asking to be represented within an existing culture. Many of them were actively changing the culture around them.And there is something especially powerful about theatre because it is so ephemeral. A performance disappears when the curtain comes down, but the people who made it can change what becomes possible afterwards.

British artist Whitney Ellis has commissioned original portraits for the exhibition. What was the collaborative process like, and how does illustration capture the spirit of these pioneers?
Whitney has been such a beautiful collaborator because she understood immediately that I wanted something contemporary and elegant that could allow the women to feel present rather than simply historical.

The gold thread is physically incorporated into the artworks which means the metaphor becomes something you can actually see and touch. There is a lovely tension between the simplicity of Whitney's line drawings and the physicality of the gold.

And there is a personal thread here too. I first met Whitney a few years ago at Jess Huie's Purpose talk and we stayed in touch. Over the years I’ve been to support her at an exhibition around domestic violence and he has created a private commission for a friend’s beautiful mum who sadly died suddenly  so the fact that we are now making these portraits together feels wonderfully circular. One creative encounter led to another and eventually became part of this exhibition about creative inheritance.

Craft and making are recurring themes in this exhibition. How does the metaphor of weaving a "golden thread" apply to the act of building a career as a Black woman in the arts?
For me, the golden thread is about the things we inherit that aren't necessarily tangible: courage, imagination, knowledge, permission, possibility, JOY.

Building a career as a Black woman in the arts can involve a lot of making your own way. It also means though that we are carrying things that other people made possible for us - quite literally standing on the shoulders of giants.

The thread is a way of acknowledging all of that while also asking what we are going to pass forward. It connects us to those who have gone before and those who will come after.

The interactive Golden Thread installation uses a repurposed tree from the CFT props department. What was the thinking behind incorporating sustainability and prop history into a space for personal reflection?
I loved the idea that the Golden Thread should have a history before it even entered the exhibition!

The tree came from CFT's props department, so it has already existed within the theatre's world. We are giving it another life and asking audiences to add their own stories to it throughout October.

I think also in a world being slowly dominated by AI putting artists out of jobs I loved the idea of also celebrating craft and the act of creating. It is also a pointed nod to sustainability and the care that we all need to be taking for our environment. Pre-loved is the best way! So yeah, the tree isn't just an interactive display. It becomes a physical metaphor for the whole exhibition. We inherit materials, stories, ideas and spaces from the people who came before us and then we transform them into something new.

Pioneering figures like Una Marson and Yvonne Brewster broke ground during eras with very few entry points for Black creatives. What surprised or moved you most while researching their legacies?
I think what moved me most was the sheer ingenuity. You read about these women historically and it can be easy to flatten them into “pioneers”, as though they simply appeared and achieved extraordinary things. But when you look more closely, you see the resourcefulness behind it. Yvonne Brewster graduating from Rose Bruford College as one of the first Black female graduates in the UK and was told that she would only be cast as a maid or servant. This didn’t dissuade her though. Instead she returned to Jamaica and turned her family's garage into The Barn Theatre! I just love that she didn't simply wait for the industry to change. She made somewhere else for theatre to happen.

And with Una Marson, it is extraordinary to think about the breadth of what she was doing moving between poetry, journalism, theatre, the UN and broadcasting and using those platforms to champion other Caribbean voices.

What stays with me is how often these women were not simply asking, “How do I succeed?” They were asking, “How do I create something that can exist after me?”

Today's figures, such as Michaela Coel and Winsome Pinnock, are reshaping contemporary theatre. How do you view the current landscape for black creatives in 2026?
There is definitely more visibility and opportunities than there was for many of the women in this exhibition, but visibility isn't the same thing as equality.

There are so many extraordinary Black creatives working across British theatre now and we are definitely seeing more ambitious and complex stories being told (Driftwood is a perfect example of that!). But there are still questions around who gets funded, who gets to lead institutions, who is given the freedom to fail… that’s an important one and who gets to have a long career.

What gives me hope is the number of people building their own structures alongside existing ones. That feels very much in the spirit of the women in the exhibition. The work isn't only about getting through the door, it’s about how we create the space in the room itself.

Theatre history often suffers from erasure or incomplete archives. How does an exhibition like this serve as an act of reclaiming and preserving history?
Part of what motivated me was the feeling that these stories should not have to be rediscovered by every generation. An exhibition can't solve the problem of archival erasure but it can make a contribution to visibility. It can put a name on a wall, put a face alongside it, create a point of entry for someone who might then go and read the play, the book or the history for themselves.

And importantly, I don't want these women to exist only as historical figures. The exhibition is about their continuing presence. The question isn't simply, “What did they achieve?” It is, “What became possible because they did?” And then, where do WE sit in their thread of gold.

Visitors are invited to add names and messages to the Golden Thread tree, turning the exhibit into a living, collective artwork. What do you hope people feel when they leave their own mark on the installation?
I hope it feels surprisingly personal! You might walk into the exhibition expecting to learn about six women and then suddenly you're being asked to think about someone in your own life. I especially hope it will encourage people to think about what they will pass on.

As an author, actor, filmmaker, and now curator, how does your background performing on stage and screen influence the way you curate a space for audiences?
I think first and foremost I just care so much about people. I am always putting myself in someone’s shoes, thinking about how they view the world. As an actor, I'm always thinking about what someone is going to feel. As a filmmaker, I'm thinking about how I craft a world and as a writer, I'm interested in language and whose voice is being heard, so I approached the exhibition quite instinctively through all three of those lenses.

I didn't want it to feel like a textbook on a wall. I wanted there to be moments of discovery and of beauty. I’ve worked closely with the amazing designer George Nuttall at Bob King Creative to actually curate this as a sensory experience.  I wanted the audience to have an active relationship with it, which is why the Golden Thread became so important.

This Thread of Gold has turned you into a prominent voice for celebrating Black womanhood. How do you navigate the shift from creator to being viewed as an inspirational figure or role model yourself?
I think it's lovely if something I've done makes another person feel that a particular path is possible but I don't necessarily feel that I have arrived anywhere! I'm still figuring things out as much as anyone.

What I have become more comfortable with is the responsibility of being visible. If someone sees me moving between writing, acting, filmmaking and producing and thinks, “Maybe I can do more than one thing too,” then that's meaningful to me.And I am always thinking of five-year old me and the next generation coming up, how can we make the world a little brighter for them.

The title of your exhibition highlights women who "created opportunities where none existed." Looking back at your own journey, what was a barrier you faced early on, and how did you create your own doorway through it?
It has to be the question of ‘so when are you going to choose’ and the assumption that you have to choose one identity or one lane in order to be taken seriously. I think for a while there was a sense that I needed to decide what I “was” but actually I don’t need to choose. That’s a liberating feeling.

When young creatives—especially young Black women—look to your multi-hyphenate career for inspiration, what is the most vital piece of advice or mindset shift you share with them?
Aw I love that question!  I would definitely say that you don’t have to have everything figured out before you begin. You also don't have to make yourself smaller for other people to ‘get’ you. I'm also a big believer in following curiosity. Oh, and find people who make you feel more possible, not less.

Winning the 2025 Zora Award for Nonfiction was a major milestone. How has the journey of This Thread of Gold evolved for you personally since the book's initial release?
It’s so special. To go from debut book to award-winner at the most prestigious Black literary awards (named after Zora Neale Hurston who wrote about IN the book!) to now becoming an exhibition inside a theatre… I’m literally going to be able to stand inside the very idea I was writing about! It’s so special to me. I’m not sure I will even know quite how special it is until I am standing there. It's become a living, golden thing.

If there is one core message or feeling you want the next generation of Black artists to take away from walking through this exhibition, what would it be?
POSSIBILITY. I want a young Black artist to walk through the exhibition and understand that they are not starting from nowhere. There is a golden lineage of women behind them and they can become part of the people carrying it forward. Because ultimately, I do think that’s what legacy is: making room for someone you may never even meet.

This Thread of Gold installation runs in the Chichester Festival Theatre from the 3rd to 31st October. It is free to visit during opening hours. You can find more information here https://www.cft.org.uk/offstage/this-thread-of-gold-exhibition

In Conversation with Catherine Joy White takes place on Saturday 3rd October in The Nest at Chichester Festival Theatre. Tickets are available from https://www.cft.org.uk/offstage/in-conversation-with-catherine-joy-white