They Called Him the Voice of God
work in progress: something that is not finished yet and is still being made or improved
In 2009, a British artist named Kirstie Macleod sent a red silk dress out to travel the world. It was a work in progress and she did not want to finish it herself. She wanted strangers to finish making the dress for her.
Over the next fourteen years, 380 people in 51 countries stitched a piece of that dress. Almost none of them ever met each other.
The finished dress came back to Macleod in June 2023. It is built from 87 pieces of silk and holds more than a billion stitches. In 2025, Guinness World Records named it the largest collaborative embroidery project on Earth, and put it in the 2026 book. Macleod said of the dress, “It’s one garment, it’s one piece, and yet it shows just complete unity.”
In March 2005, filmmaker Mark Johnson also created a collaborative work of art through music. He was walking through Santa Monica in California when he heard a street singer named Roger Ridley performing “Stand By Me.” Other street musicians called him the voice of God. Ridley once described why he sang on the street: “I’m in the joy business, I come out here to be with the people.” Johnson asked him if he could record the song, carry it around the world, and let other musicians sing on top of it. Ridley said yes.
Johnson’s first stop was New Orleans. There he put headphones on a street musician called Grandpa Elliott, and recorded him singing along to a man he had never met. The song was still very much a work in progress. Next, he traveled around the world stopping in South America, Europe and Africa to add more musicians. After more than three years, Johnson published the song on YouTube where it’s been watched more than 200 million times.
See the dress and hear the song below. The BBC report is from 2021, when the dress was still a work in progress.
Sample sentences
My Spanish is still a work in progress, but I can order food now without pointing at the menu.
He told me his novel is a work in progress, and he’s been saying that for six years.
Our new website is still a work in progress, so a few pages don’t load properly yet.
