DCMS Office Craft Loans
The Crafts Council will loan eight works from its collection and install a furniture project at the Ministerial Office of the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) this July.
The Crafts Council Collection represents the very best in British craft and comprises of more than 1,300 works that have been acquired since 1972 and is a working collection made accessible to the public through loans to museums, galleries and related organisations, touring exhibitions and support of educational projects.
The Crafts Council will loan eight works from this collection to the DCMS office this July.
The focus of the display is porcelain and the eight selected works all push the use of this beautiful but often technically difficult material beyond its conventional boundaries. The display will feature functional and sculptural works by Emmanuel Cooper, Claire Curneen Edmund de Waal, Daniel Fisher, Janet Leach, Chun Liao, Gwyn Hanssen Pigott and Lucie Rie.
The Crafts Council will also install the Bodging Milano project in advance of its public UK launch at Designers Block at the London Design Festival in September 2010.
Bodging Milano is a project that took place in early April 2010. Nine UK-based makers and designers explored the roots of furniture making by living for a week in the woods of deepest Herefordshire, learning how to bodge. Bodging is a traditional wood-turning craft sourcing materials and working without electricity but with pole-lathes, steam-benders and hand tools.
The nine makers were Suzanne Barnes, Carl Clerkin, Rory Dodd, Chris Eckersley, Dave Green, Gitta Gschwendtner, Amos Marchant, Gareth Neal and William Warren, and the result was a group of nine prototype chairs that were first shown at Designers Block in Milan the Fuori Salone 2010 in April.
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For further information or images please contact Jill Read, Press Officer, on 020 7806 2549 and media@craftscouncil.org.uk
Notes to Editors
• The Collection is a resource for teaching and research, and available for students and researchers through visits and booked appointments and available to view digitally via the Crafts Council website www.craftscouncil.org.uk
• The Crafts Council’s goal is to make the UK the best place to make, see, collect and learn about contemporary craft.
We believe that craft plays a dynamic and vigorous role in the UK’s social, economic and cultural life.
We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to make, see, collect and learn about craft.
We believe that the strength of craft lies in its use of traditional and contemporary techniques, ideas and materials to make extraordinary new work.
We believe that the future of craft lies in nurturing talent; children and young people must be able to learn about craft at school and have access to excellent teaching throughout their education.
• 11% of the UK population visited a craft exhibition in 20089/09, and 17% participated in craft activity in the same year (DCMS/ACE Taking Part data update August 2009).
• More than 2.8 million visits were made to the Crafts Council website in 2009. To find out everything you need to know about where to make, see, collect and learn about contemporary craft visit www.craftscouncil.org.uk
• The Crafts Council is supported by Arts Council England. Arts Council England works to get great art to everyone by championing, developing and investing in artistic experiences that enrich people’s lives. As the national development agency for the arts, it supports a range of artistic activities from theatre to music, literature to dance, photography to digital art, and carnival to crafts. Between 2008 and 2011, Arts Council England will invest £1.3 billion of public money from government and a further £0.3 billion from the National Lottery to create these experiences for as many people as possible across the country.
