Category: Exhibitions and Public Programmes
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Installing ‘Beauty is the First Test’ at Bilston Craft Gallery
This touring exhibition was at Bilston Craft Gallery in Wolverhampton from 7 September to 2nd November 2013. The space is a similar size to the main gallery at NCCD but architecturally it works in a very different way, as internal partitions divide into three zones. The space can be very bright with its integral fillets…
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“Growing” – celebrating The National Centre for Craft & Design’s 10th birthday
This exhibition was on show in the main gallery of The National Centre for Craftt &Design at Sleaford from 20 July – 29 September 2013, to mark NCCD’s 10th anniversary. Co-curated by my colleague Laura Mabbutt, then NCCD’s exhibitions manager, and me, and showing work by over 35 artists and designers nominated as future stars,…
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Beauty is the First Test – film by Electric Egg
Part of this project involved a new film commission made by Lincoln-based Electric Egg. They took as their starting point my sentence: “In craft we seek to explore the relationship of the process to materials, of hand to form, of eye to object.” The film, conceived of and created by Neil Baker and Steve Hatton,…
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David Gates’ furniture commission for ‘Beauty is the First Test’
With the kind support of The National Centre for Craft & Design (NCCD), I was delighted to commission David Gates to make five unique pieces of exhibition ‘furniture’ to showcase samples, models, small finished pieces, and photo and sketch books about five makers: Gail Baxter, Stella Harding, Carol Quarini, Margo Selby and David himself. Image…
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Beauty is the First Test – Touring Exhibition 2012-2014
This exhibition explores how knowledge of either contemporary craft practice or mathematics may increase appreciation of both. The title is from a 1940 essay by accomplished mathematician G H Hardy who declared: ‘The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s, must be beautiful, the ideas, like the colours or the words, must fit together…
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Under the Counter, Smiths Row 18 Sep – 30 Oct 2010
Back in April I mentioned this exhibition, which I’d just invited the maker collective Intelligent Trouble to work on with me. It’s been fantastically realised. All of the Intelligent Trouble collective and particularly Helen Carnac put a lot of thought and energy into it. The theme was jewellery in conversation and we programmed events ans…
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Holland Paper Biennial at The Knitting & Stitching Show 2010
I was invited by Creative Events to create an exhibition based on a curated selection of artists from the Holland Paper Biennial 2010, to be shown at The Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace. This project originated at Museum Rijswijk in a suburb of The Hague, in the Netherlands. Selection and installation were hard…
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A New Collaboration: Intelligent trouble ahead
I met Helen Carnac and David Gates yesterday to talk about a new project I am planning for Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery and how we might find a way to work together. I’ve exhibited both David and Helen’s work in successive end of year craft shows at Bury St Edmunds in the last 18…
Liz Cooper 