Kamilah Ahmed is a London-based embroidery artist and designer based at Cockpit Bloomsbury. Her practice bridges heritage craft and material innovation, creating bespoke embroidered artworks for contemporary interiors. Combining hand embroidery with digital and experimental textile processes, she reinterprets traditional techniques such as Jamdani weaving and Ari hook embroidery to produce layered, narrative-driven pieces that honour cultural heritage while advancing the language of modern craft.
Through her QEST Scholarship, Kamilah will undertake a programme of one-to-one training to deepen and diversify her technical skills. This includes fabric upholstery with Richard Hack, creative laser cutting with Malaika Carr, specialised Wilcom digital embroidery with Sarangua Sodnom, silversmithing with QEST Scholar Jacky Oliver, and welding and large-scale metal sheet bending with Scenic Sets. Each area of study will expand her ability to work across materials, enabling her to integrate embroidery with metal, structure, and form in innovative new ways.
Kamilah’s goal is to develop a sustainable, collaborative practice that supports both innovation and heritage preservation, contributing to an ongoing dialogue about the future of making within contemporary art and design.
