Curated by Oxo Tower Wharf, a carefully selected line up of innovative and forward-thinking craft organisations, practitioners and collectives will be presented across five floors in the raw, industrial settings of London’s Bargehouse.
The Future of Craft has been conceived alongside project collaborators Design-Nation and Future Icons who will each present headline installations at the show. Design-Nation will showcase new projects and products by leading makers from across their portfolio including Amy Leigh, Christine Meyer-Eaglestone, Emma-Jane Rule, Georgia Bosson, Jacky Puzey, Jacqueline James, Julie Vernon, Lucy Elisabeth, Leszek Sikon, Linda Bloomfield, Maria Sigma, Michelle House, Raw Studio, Speckled Grey and Susannah Weiland.
Future Icons will present a curated mix of new and established hand-crafted projects by sixteen interior led artists across ceramics, furniture, lighting, metalwork and textiles including Vezzini & Chen, RHMB, Barnaby Goode, Richard McVetis and Cristabel Balfour.
Elsewhere in the building, visitors will enjoy installations and demonstrations from craftspeople including Fung & Bedford, Helen Yardley, Margo Selby, Sarah Villeneau, Angie Parker and Anna Gravelle as well as an interactive installation of Catinca Tilea’s #1minutelamp.
The event will also feature a special installation of David Penny’s Screen for Another Focus. This moving image installation and series of photographic works were produced during an artist residency at Dovecot Tapestry Studio. The immersive projection focuses on the object and materials that build the weavers’ world and the familiarity of actions and muscle memory in the body that all come into play in the process and activity of weaving. Screen for Another Focus will form part of this year’s Real to Reel: The Craft Film Festival, presented by Crafts Council.
The Future of Craft will host a thought-provoking talks programme including a one-day seminar hosted by Ceramics Research Centre-UK. Group discussions and presentations will address topics such as Future Craft and Culture with speakers such as Clare Twomey, Phoebe Cummings and Tessa Peters. More to be announced soon.
Visitors will have the chance to get involved with hands-on craft workshops with Yodomo, who deliver creative learning experiences, including sessions such as Make a Terrarium with London Terrariums, An Introduction to Embroidery with Embellished Talk and Rise and Shine shoe shine with shoemakers Carreducker, and many more still to be announced.
A talks programme curated by Oxo Tower Wharf in collaboration with Design-Nation and Future Icons as well as a hands-on craft workshop programme by Yodomo has now been confirmed, details attached.
Alongside this, three of Design-Nation’s makers will be doing demonstrations across the event:
- Award-winning textile brand Maria Sigma will be weaving onsite throughout the show specialising in ‘zero waste’ ethical hand-woven textiles, you’ll be able to explore all the stages that are required from the raw materials to the warp, to the cloth, until the finished woven piece and/or have a go on the loom. Combining a contemporary approach and traditional weaving techniques, Maria Sigma focuses on raw natural materials and texture.
- Leszek Sikon will be on site throughout the show demonstrating how he produces a series of superb artisan tools and knives, using age-old skills to produce modern objects of desire.
- Angie Parker will be demonstrating body-tensioned weaving in room 12 on Thursday 9th May. Angie Parker is an award winning weaver of rugs and exquisite, vibrant textiles derived from traditional Scandinavian rug weaving techniques. Her distinctive and intricate floor art and fabric creations are hand-woven using long established patterns, such as Krokbragd, which she combines with her instinctive and daring approach to colour.