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Annual Craft Curators’ Day 2008
16 October 2008

Speaking at this event:

  • 16 October 2008

    16 October 2008

  • Francesca Geens

    The Art Fund
    Francesca Geens

    Francesca Geens
    Head of Grants, The Art Fund

    Francesca Geens is Head of Grants at The Art Fund, where she has worked since 2001. Before this she worked at The National Gallery while completing her PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Francesca will discuss The Art Fund’s long history of support for decorative and applied art, explain how to make an application to the fund, and talk about its special initiative for contemporary craft acquisitions, Art Fund Collect, launched with great success last year in partnership with the Crafts Council, and to be repeated in 2009.

    www.artfund.org/
    www.craftscouncil.org.uk/collect/artfund/


    Documents related to this talk

    • Francesca Geens Transcript

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    • Francesca Geens Presentation

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  • Susie O’Reilly and Brigid Howarth

    Museumaker
    Susie O’Reilly and Brigid Howarth

    Museumaker
    Susie O’Reilly, Independent Consultant

    Since 2000, Susie O’Reilly has worked as an independent consultant focusing on building innovative partnerships to develop the creative and cultural economy in the UK and abroad. In particular, she brokers adventurous collaborations which look forward to the past and back to the future. Other current projects include developing New Ways of Curating to explore the concept of curatorship as a collaborative art form and enable high-quality contemporary art work to be shown in unusual places. Prior to setting up independently, she was Head of Formal Education at the V&A, and before that at the Crafts Council, where she led its battle to retain craft in the National Curriculum. At the Oxfordshire Museum Service she curated a series of exhibitions including Artists Potters Now which culminated in an auction of work at Sotheby’s London, the show’s sponsors.

    Museumaker
    Brigid Howarth, Director of Brigid Howarth Consultancy Ltd

    Brigid Howarth is Director of Brigid Howarth Consultancy Ltd, South London, which specialises in creating integrated long-term strategies and action-research projects for clients across the cultural and creative industries. Some of these programmes are nurtured for up to five years; others are shorter, with immediate impact. The company employs a range of specialist consultants and has networks across the sectors. Brigid set up her consultancy in 2000 because she saw a shortfall in the level of expertise that cultural clients could access to work on new strategies and programme development, not just in the capital but across the UK. The company works in many regions, rural and urban, and also internationally. Brigid is also co-Director (with Ben Coode-Adams) of Artefact Projects, a commissioning agency that has worked with museums, galleries and local authorities, as well as organising conferences on international art practice.

  • David Kay

    The Shape of Things
    David Kay

    David Kay, Freelance Arts Consultant

    David Kay is directing the development of the Shape of Things. He is a freelance arts consultant with a particular interest in contemporary crafts primarily concerned with exhibition, art in public places and urban design.

    The Shape of Things explores diversity within contemporary craft practice through a series of creative opportunities for makers to develop new work for specific locations and venues. This presentation will update the forum on progress since the project was discussed at its 2006 meeting in Bristol, covering the aims of the project, its relationship to collections, and how curators and venues can become involved. The Shape of Things is funded by Arts Council England

    Website: www.theshapeofthings.org.uk

    Documents related to this talk

  • Fiona Talbot

    Heritage Lottery Fund
    Fiona Talbot

    Fiona Talbot
    Head of Museums Libraries and Archives, Heritage Lottery Fund

    Fiona Talbot has worked in the cultural sector for over 25 years and is currently Head of Museums, Libraries and Archives at the Heritage Lottery Fund. She began her career at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle and has held several posts in local authority museums. She worked for the South Eastern Museums Service for six years before becoming the first Director of London Museums Agency in 2001. Most recently she was Head of Museum and Culture at Hackney Council in East London where she produced Hackney’s cultural policy and developed the authority’s offer from the museums and arts sector to the Cultural Olympiad. Fiona chaired the London Museums Group from its establishment in 2005 until her move to Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

    Heritage Lottery Fund is the lottery distribution body for all aspects of UK heritage. This session will focus on the funding programmes HLF runs that are relevant to acquisition of crafts collections. It will examine HLF’s recent programme, Collecting Cultures, providing examples of the type of projects that HLF is seeking to fund.

    Website: http://www.hlf.org.uk/English/

    Documents related to this talk

  • Amy Barker

    The new Designs for Life Gallery at the Shipley Art Gallery
    Amy Barker

    Amy Barker
    Curator, Shipley Art Gallery

    Amy Barker has managed the Shipley Art Gallery since January 2006, developing a wide-ranging exhibition programme that emphasises quality and attracting a varied audience. Exhibitions include national touring shows, collections exhibitions and regional partnerships, in particular with Northumbria University. Amy managed the development and implementation of the Shipley’s new Designs for Life gallery, which opened in March 2008. Prior to working at the Shipley, Amy was Exhibitions Officer for Tyne and Wear Museums, and before this spent three years as Keeper of Art at the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, where she curated the successful Boudin, Monet and the Sea Painters of Normandy exhibition in 2004. Amy began her career in 2000 at National Museums Liverpool managing the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight.

    Website: http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/shipley/

    Documents related to this talk

  • Amanda Draper

    The challenges of working with diverse funders: the new ceramics and glass gallery at Harris Museum
    Amanda Draper

    Amanda Draper
    Keeper of Fine Art, Harris Museum & Art Gallery

    Amanda Draper has been at the Harris since 2003; first as Keeper of Decorative Art and now as Keeper of Fine Art. She has worked in the museum sector since 1999 and was previously at Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry. Amanda’s paper will discuss the various funding issues surrounding the Harris’s new Ceramics and Glass Gallery.

    Website: http://www.harrismuseum.org.uk/

    Documents related to this talk

  • Dinah Winch

    Collecting 20th century ceramics
    Dinah Winch

    Collecting 20th-century ceramics: HLF Collecting Cultures grant
    Dinah Winch, Senior Curator, Gallery Oldham

    Dinah Winch is Senior Curator at Gallery Oldham, where she works with the Fine and Decorative art collections and manages the Gallery’s exhibition programme. Before moving to Oldham in 2002, Dinah spent five years at the Victoria and Albert Museum, working first on the British Galleries Project, then in the Research Department. The exhibitions programme in Oldham has developed in recent years to include a number of significant crafts exhibitions.


    Documents related to this talk

  • James Beighton

    Acquiring Edmund de Waal’s Wunderkammer for mima
    James Beighton

    James Beighton, Curator of Craft, mima

    James Beighton is Curator of Craft at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (mima), with responsibility (with the Fine Art Curator) for devising the temporary exhibition programme, and for maintaining the collections of British Ceramics Art and Contemporary International Jewellery. Prior to mima opening, he curated a series of offsite craft projects that introduced its philosophy to a new audience. Before this he was Curator of the Cleveland Crafts Centre and Middlesbrough Art Gallery, and Exhibition Officer for Craft at City Gallery in Leicester. He was educated at Leicester University with a BA & MA in English Literature.

    This paper will start with mima’s recent acquisition of Edmund de Waal Wunderkammer, which was supported by The Art Fund, the Northern Rock Foundation and the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, to the total value of £100,000. At the same time mima acquired a body of de Waal’s works making up his ‘archive’, objects from all stages of his career, from a soup bowl made aged 14, through the standard ware of the late 80s, to a recent, previously unexhibited installation, The Thing in Itself. These were presented to mima as a gift in light of the acquisition and our existing relationship.
    The paper will evaluate ambition as part of the way museums approach acquisitions, and the benefit of developing long-term relationships with artists, and how these can be developed to stimulate major acquisitions, despite severe collection budget constraints.


    Documents related to this talk

  • Alun Graves

    Redevelopment of the Ceramics Galleries at the V&A
    Alun Graves

    Alun Graves, Curator, Ceramics & Glass Collection, V&A

    Alun Graves is a Curator in the Sculpture, Metalwork Ceramics and Glass Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, where he has worked since 1993. He is responsible for the collections of 20th Century and Contemporary Ceramics and Glass.

    The V&A is currently engaged in the first comprehensive redevelopment of its ceramics galleries in 100 years. This substantial project will see the collection redisplayed across 11 galleries, and interpreted in new and radically different ways. The overall redevelopment will be carried out in two phases, these taking different approaches to display, and balancing the needs and demands of different audiences. The talk will explain the scope of the project and provide detail about the various spaces being worked upon by the project team. Examples of specific displays from the galleries will be shown, placing emphasis on the inclusion of contemporary ceramics.

    Website: http://www.vam.ac.uk/futureplan/

    Documents related to this talk

  • Birgit Dohrendorf

    Crafts Council Collection and Collection Initiatives
    Birgit Dohrendorf

    Birgit Dohrendorf
    Registrar, Crafts Council

    Birgit Dohrendorf is Registrar at the Crafts Council where she has worked since 2006. Prior to this she worked in a collections care and management capacity at the National Maritime Museum, Imperial War Museum and Commonwealth Institute.


    Documents related to this talk

See also

  • Crafts Council Collective

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