ArtsFest 2009
Detail of work made for Jubilee Baths
By Jennifer Collier for our Making Moves project.
The Shape of Things
Mother Tongue by Alinah Azadeh
Mother Tongue, part of The Gifts by Alinah Azadeh
Press Area
High resoulution images are available. Please contact Lisa Falaschi on l.falaschi@craftspace.co.uk or telephone 0121 608 6444 for all media enquiries.
One and Other
PRESS RELEASE
Deirdre Figueiredo wins July place in Antony Gormley’s One & Other for Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square
Deirdre Figueiredo from Kings Heath in Birmingham is one of the 2,400 people selected to make an exhibition of herself on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square on Friday 17th July from 8 to 9pm.
Deirdre Figueiredo, Director of Craftspace, a crafts development organisation in the city, is one of the first group of 615 participants for celebrated artist Antony Gormley’s One & Other project. 615 ordinary people have been selected at random from more than 13,000 applicants across the UK to occupy the empty Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in July.
Deirdre is one of 140 participants from West Midlandswho have been chosen for the month of July from the 13,000 applications that have been received to date for the project.
She said, “I will be unravelling a second hand woollen garment and making a pledge to remake it into something with a new purpose, teaching myself to knit in the process. It will make me reflect more on sustainability as well and appreciate the value of makers in society.”
In appreciation of the ingenuity of British Designer Makers, Deirdre will be wearing an amazing sculptural garment by Kei Ito www.keiito.com
Deirdre has also put a callout to makers, crafters and craftivists to take time out to join her in Trafalgar Square and share her hour on the plinth celebrating making, the spirit of collaboration and of conviviality as well as of exchanging and valuing skill.
So far Sumi Perera has pledged to come along and make an artists’ book, http://www.six-of-one.co.uk/sp.htm, http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/artist_profile//23368.html
Mary Spyrou will be embroidering and Momtaz Begum-Hossain will also be making
www.momtazbh.co.uk
Contact Deirdre on 0121 608 6668 or by email at d.figueiredo@craftspace.co.uk. Visit www.oneandother.co.uk for more information about the project and to register.
For further media information from One and Other, please contact emily@ideageneration.co.uk or by telephone on 0207 749 6853.
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Editors’ Notes
About Craftspace
Deirdre Figueiredo works for Craftspace. Craftspace works to increase opportunities for makers, as well as access to and participation in contemporary crafts for all audiences. It promotes and develops contemporary crafts through nationally and internationally touring exhibitions, participatory learning projects, action research partnerships and consultancy.
Craftspace is working on an exhibition entitled taking time : crafts and the Slow Revolution curated with Helen Carnac which will open on October 17th at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
www.craftspace.co.uk also http:/makingaslowrevoultion@wordpress.co.uk
About Kei Ito
Kei Ito is a London based designer maker of couture and accessories who works internationally. Recent collaborations have included costume making for Akram Khan Dance Company’s ‘Bahok’ and for Russell Maliphant as part of PUSH London Coliseum. www.keiito.com
More about One and Other
The One and Other project, which is commissioned by the Mayor of London with funds from the Arts Council, and produced in partnership with Sky Arts, will see a different person take their place on the Fourth Plinth every hour, 24 hours a day, for 100 days. It will run from Monday 6th July until 14th October 2009. Applications are still open and can be made at www.oneandother.co.uk. All applications for the remaining three draws have an equal chance of success within each region, whether old or new.
Routes To New Roots
PRESS RELEASE 25.03.10
Routes to New Roots
Routes to New Roots - Exhibition
Thursday 13th May – Tuesday `15th June 2010
10pm – 4.30pm Monday – Friday FREE
Saint Martin’s Arts, St Martin in the Bull Ring
Birmingham B5 5BB
Routes to New Roots is an exhibition of work made by newly arrived and refugee women, who have participated in the recent project led by Craftspace and The Community Integration Partnership. The display will be on show at St Martin in the Bull Ring, Birmingham from 13th May – 15th June.
The refugee and newly arrived women who regularly attend one of seven children’s centres across Birmingham have worked with professional artists to create pieces which explore the theme of journeys and have experimented with different craft disciplines and techniques.
Using recycled fabrics, women have worked with artist Ruth Singer to create Suffolk Puffs (a traditional technique) giving pieces a contemporary edge. Food images were selected as a metaphor for journeys and the diverse cuisine you find in different cultures. The women chose an image they related to which was then transfer printed onto the centre of the piece. All the individual pieces have been joined together to make a small quilt. Words or symbols of meaning were incorporated into pieces, which become almost invisible in the process.
Consequently, the personal aspects of the puff are secret and private, so when the puff is added to the whole quilt, it keeps those personal secrets in, while being part of the group piece.
Further textile techniques were explored with artist Nicola Griffiths. The women worked together to screen print tea towels, exploring the theme of journeys by creating images depicting everyday items from their countries of origin and their counterparts in the UK.
Birmingham based artist Melanie Tomlinson explored journeys through ideas of migration. Using thin metal sheets with printed maps of the world and more detailed ones of Birmingham on them, three beautiful collages of flowers and birds have been created which reflect where women have travelled from and where they are now.
Routes to New Roots is the start of a new collaborative project between The Community Integration Partnership (CIP) and Craftspace. Following six years of successful partnership work, this new project is an initiative which aims to develop a craft social enterprise with newly arrived and refugee women promoting excellence in making. The social enterprise will contribute towards the role of crafts as an ongoing contribution to the cultural, economic, social regeneration and tourism infrastructure of the country.
Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution
07.09.09
EXHIBITION: taking time: Craft and the Slow Revolution
A touring exhibition from Craftspace curated with Helen CarnacTouring nationally from October 09
A new touring exhibition of contemporary craft
Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution is the title of Craftspace’s next major national touring exhibition, curated with maker and academic Helen Carnac. The exhibition launches at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery on 17th October 2009 and will tour to seven venues including Dovecot Edinburgh, Harley Gallery Nottinghamshire, Millennium Court Arts Centre Northern Ireland, University of Hertfordshire St. Albans, Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery and the Platform Gallery in Lancashire until 2011. Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution features the work of nineteen contemporary makers and artists reflecting on a slow revolution: considering ideas around time and process, material and value, site and locality, relationships to community and the changing nature of production and consumption.
“The exhibition considers a position where craft making and contemporary studio practices have obvious similarities to the values and philosophies of the Slow Movement. Parallels include the common ground shared with artisanal food production, as it is committed to values of quality, provenance and locale, but also to engaging in a more reflective mode of practice. Thinking about these philosophies and how they relate to current social issues we hope that we can begin to show that craft and its methodologies can generate a modern and timely response.”
Helen Carnac, Maker and Academic
“The taking time exhibition shows how craft fits into the Slow culture-quake. It offers a thrilling reminder that every object has a story behind it and that the art of making matters hugely to all of us.”
Carl Honoré, Author of In Praise of Slow
The nineteen exhibitors cover a broad range of practice including ceramic, textile, jewellery, upcycling fashion and textile, letter cutting, furniture, enamelling, animation, digital representation, photography and participatory work. Many of the exhibitors have been commissioned to make new work for the exhibition, responding to a series of ideas including how audiences may be encouraged to think and engage with objects and how makers think about their work through the context of others.
Ceramic artist Paul Scott, is using the collection at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery as a starting point for a collaboration with Ann Linnemann a ceramic artist based in Copenhagen. Taking old maps of Birmingham city gardens and orchards off Temple Row and Bull Street, and Church Gardens, which mirror the Kings Gardens in Copenhagen, Paul will produce images for a new collection entitled Body Blue porcelain tablewares. Textile artist Matthew Harris uses hand stitching to make and re-work work. Matthew incorporates the structure of music into the production of his work, “The Estonian composer Arvo Part talks about certain sounds/signals that have a quality of having lasted an entire life-time; of having a past or future that is outside time. I want the work that I make to have this quality, both in terms of material, colour and images.”
Exhibits will also be loaned from international exhibitors: Israeli artist Esther Knobel’s range of brooches and plates from the ‘Mind in the Hand’ series visually describe ‘hands at work at a variety of tasks’ whilst American artist Sonya Clark will loan her piece ‘Climb’ from the ‘Calculated Gestures Series’. The pieces in this series are made by slowly and methodically beading gestures or movements. ‘Climb’ took over 120 hours to make by hand, whilst ascending a ladder of the same height might take a matter of seconds. The hands at either end of the piece metaphorically stretch between one place of being or mindset and another.’
The exhibition will encourage visitors to reflect on ‘slowness’ and time taken in making work however, it will also show that not all making is literally slow and that the exhibition does not intend to oppose concepts of speed, aiming to take a more philosophical stance. Visitors will also be given the opportunity to contribute to ‘Garland’ a textile installation created by Shane Waltener. Working with dance artist Cheryl McChesney Jones, Waltener will instigate the beginnings of this knotted, knitted and woven textile installation at the exhibition’s opening, through a dance piece. Visitors will then be invited to add to the piece by adding knitting, knotting and weaving to the structure during their visit. With each knot and stitch, thoughts will be entered into the woven structure with the intention that connections will made between the maker, the craft practised and the materials. The resulting woven fabric will be a document of this interaction.
Time in Print a community focussed project delivered in partnership with the National Trust has been run as an action research project while the Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution exhibition has been in development . A group of African Caribbean elders from the West Midlands Caribbean Parents and Friends Association, have been working with designer Linda Florence at Wightwick Manor in Wolverhampton. They have produced their own creative responses to the issues surrounding the Slow Movement which are inspired by William Morris and the Arts and Craft Movement. A selection of their hand printed wallpapers will be exhibited in the Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution exhibition.
Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution will tour nationally until 2011. For more information please visit www.craftspace.co.uk.
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Craftspace Collective
PRESS RELEASE 04.05.2010
EVENT:
Free drop in art activity aimed at 16-19 year olds (but open to all).
Saturday 8th May 1-4pm.
At the Churchyard (Pigeon Park), Birmingham Cathedral, Birmingham B3 2QB,
Crochet the City
On Saturday 8th May artist Amy Twigger Holroyd will be making large-scale crochet using materials gleaned from city streets.
Amy says “Think crochet is just for grannies? Think again! We’ll be using large-scale crochet and finger knitting techniques to create new structures from familiar cityscape materials like hazard and barrier tapes. Learn the basics, experiment, and then place your creations back into the city environment. Will passers-by notice the craft hidden under their noses?”
The event is part of the Craftspace Collective project run by Craftspace.
Craftspace are particularly targeting young people who are not in education or employment and are aged between 16 and 19. The Craftspace Collective is a series of events encouraging young people to become socially engaged and to learn more about ideas of guerrilla craft, DIY Craft and Craftivism (activism using craft as a tool). The intention is to create a collective who will then go on to organise their own interventions throughout the city and develop ideas based on their own issues.
The project aims to get young people involved in all aspects of organising these types of activities. The flyer for the event was designed by two students from BCU who had attended an earlier Craftspace Collective event.
The project will continue over the summer. See the blog for more information. http://craftspacecollective.wordpress.com/
Crafts=Skills for Life
06.07.09
PRESS RELEASE
Exhibition launch
Thursday 16th July 2009 2 -3.30pm
Symphony Hall, Broad Street, Birmingham
Filming, photo and interview opportunities
Practical, creative lessons improve learning.
On Thursday 16th July an exhibition of ceramics, textiles and jewellery by children from Birmingham will go on show in the city’s Symphony Hall. This follows a project which addressed the issue that practical making skills should be a more valued part of school education.
This pilot project looked at whether practical learning has any effects on how pupils learn and if it has an influence on their attitude and achievement.
“Craft=Skills for Life has been a great success, it has proven that practical making sessions can be beneficial for all level of pupils. We have found that practical learning has helped gifted and talented pupils to understand and retain complex maths and science knowledge, while it has given disaffected pupils an opportunity to gain self worth and the confidence to achieve within their school.”
Stuart Shotton, Education & Community Co-ordinator
A recent Ofsted report has claimed that craft and practical making skills are being squeezed out of the current curriculum and students are no longer having the chance to experience these activities. Craftspace’s aim is to prove the importance and validity of reintroducing the teaching of craft skills in our schools and to lobby for contemporary craft to be moved up the curriculum agenda.
Pupils from the Ishango Science Club, Wheelers Lane Technology College and Braidwood School for the Deaf have each worked with a resident artist – Birmingham based felt maker, Jamie Lewis, West Midlands jeweller, Will Evans and East Midlands ceramicist, Andrew Tanner .
The 11 and 12 year old students have developed “products” or objects which they have used as a vehicle to explore enterprise and industry.
Funded by Birmingham City Council through its annual programme - Creative Futures Awards, this is Craftspace’s current major research project.
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Photographs © : Jonathon Bosworth, Richard Battye, Anand Chhabra, Xavier Young
Developing people, ideas and opportunities through contemporary craft.
