Craftspace

Craftspace Collective

Event Flyer

DIY, Guerilla craft and Craftivism for 16-19 year olds in Birmingham.

Craftspace Collective

Project Summary

Cathedral Green, Birmingham Cathedral, 1-4pm

Saturday 21st August: Andy Murray, Upcycling Tea Towels

Saturday 28th August: Celia Pym 'Knit, Undo and Fix'

The next two Craftspace Collective events will show how to make something new out of old tea towels and on the 28th involve knitting and darning - against the clock!

Call for tea towels!

Our activity with the Craft Collective on the 21st August will involve upcycling tea towels. If anyone has some old ones they can donate please get in touch, or better still, have root around at the bottom of the kitchen drawers and bring along one to transform on the day. Please phone Deirdre Buckley on 0121 608 6668 if you can help. The weirder designs the better.

More event info and images here craftspacecollective.wordpress.com

Craft Collective: Project Outline

The project is aimed at diverse young people aged 16 -19 from inner city Birmingham (some of whom are not in education, employment and training) but who have some interest/ability in the arts. The project will focus on ideas of guerrilla craft, DIY Craft and Craftivism - with a view to developing a young people led craft collective which will then organise a series of interventions throughout the city.

We will recruit a series of makers to engage with young people We want young people to develop a shared interest in making, to have a voice/express opinions and to explore theirs’ and other’s creativity. Through the development of the collective they might want to explore:

· Thinking through craft

· The relationship between craft and youth culture

· The relationship between craft and current social, political and economic conditions (credit crunch/global economic crises)

We are hoping to start the process by recruiting young people to a taster day/weekend/eve event at the Custard Factory in January (either 16/17 or 23/24) to include making/interventions led by3/4 innovative makers, music and food. We are working with a design partnership to develop a visual presence for the event and we will then invite young people to attend through an e-flyer with a link to our website that we will distribute through Gallery 37 (a city wide young people’s art project) and its recruiting partners.

Young people that attend will then be invited to apply to be part of the collective where they will work along side makers over a period of months to plan and deliver the city interventions. We are hoping to secure a regular base at the custard factory. We are also interested in identifying concrete things that young people can get out of the project (e.g. arts award/mentoring opportunities/signposting as appropriate).