Workshop:

This participatory workshop will discuss our relationship with ‘things’. How we live our lives in the 'middle of things' and how objects connect us to ideas and people. We will consider how things sometimes take the place for thought that cannot be expressed or spoken.

Workshop Context:

With more objects than ever before created daily, what makes an object become cherished?  Maybe through questioning this further we can consider how to create a meaningful and lasting future with our things.

Workshop structure: (note: Please bring your cherished thing with you.)

-Presentation by K.Richmond about things, Round table discussion

-Discussion by all participants about their relationship to the object they have brought with them. Telling the story of the object.

-Photography of people and their things.

-Summary

FOR MORE HERE

Creator in Residence: October – November 2011

CCW have collaborated with the Tokyo Wonder Site in Aoyama to invite two UAL (University of the Arts London) academics to be creators in residence in Tokyo.

Over the next two months I plan to collect stories around ‘cherished things’ and the people who cherish them. What is it that connects external things to our internal worlds.

What are todays objects telling us about the times we live in and can this sharing create some sense of reflection and common good in communities and society for the future.  Through observing what we cherish, may there be suggestions of how to live in a world with more meaningful things and maybe a future that is more in balance with ‘our stuff’. My first day was spent with the unwanted objects at a second hand sale in a carpark in Meiji Stadium.

Cherished Things（大切なもの）

Below is information to download in Japanese and English explaining the Cherished Things project in Japan.

Contact me if you would like to be involved:

Japanese:Cherished_Thing_japanese

English:Cherished_Thing english

email: k.richmond@camberwell.arts.ac.uk

Together with a fantastic group of 3D students we proposed two concepts for this event. The event: WELCOME TO THE AFTERLIFE was accepted. Visitors to the British Museum will be invited to choose the objects they want to take to the next life and lie with them in a closed coffin…..

Link to British Museum Film

A handling session at the British Museum as part of a research trip

Holding a 3000 year old piece of jade carved into a fish

Watch a fashion show, get hands-on in the craft fair, take part in interactive installations, a silent disco and much more as students from the University of the Arts London take over the Museum for one exciting night.

 In collaboration with UAL Platform & SUARTS, the University’s Student Union.

Makers Residency Programme: August 2011

Lecture: 19.08.2011 The Eduction Centre, The Sculpture Factory, Jingdezhen

Jingdezhen is situated in the Jianxi Province and is better known as ‘The Porcelain Capital’ of China. The city has a 1700 year history of porcelain production, there is an area of the city known as the ‘Sculpture Factory ‘ where you can find many small workshops with craftsmen specialising in mould-making, high pressure casting, large pot production, fine painting/brushwork, slab makers, decal makers, decal appliers,  glaze shops, tool shops and jigger jolliers….. I have included some images below.

This was the first time I have worked in porcelain and was really a taster residency, I now plan to return for a longer stay. Below are some of the initial experiments I worked on to try and find a space between function and the craftsmen I worked with.

I was determined to experience as much as possible whilst in Jingdezhen, so alongside developing the moulds and cleaning up the positives I experimented with the extrusion device, applied decals on ‘greenware’ and made a small range of hand formed mountains. It was good to experience the different approaches to working with porcelain. I enjoyed the combination of working with the master craftsmen and working in the studio.

As a beginner to ceramics with alot to learn I was intrigued by how the material tells you what it will and won’t do, learning through making. Many artists visiting Jingdezhen told me that the porcelain was very different to anything they had worked with before and they too were learning all the time, this must be interesting for a skilled maker to travel to another country and for them to have to learn how to work with what they thought they knew.

[Gallery not found]

On the residency were: Ying-Yueh Chuang from Canada, Cecilia Jansson from Sweden,  Claire Turley from Ireland

Now know as the BEIJING ARTS SUMMER SCHOOL

The three-week programme culminated in an exhibition at the Lee Song Gallery in the 798 Art District of Beijing. There’s highlights of the blog  here where all 11 of us share our day-to-day observations.

The exhibition poster designed by Keri Thornton from LCC

A few random images, from the blog

August 2011

I was in Beijing for five weeks and asked people to share with me the story of their most cherished object.  A selection of these stories and photographs were displayed as part of the Eleven Exhibition at Jinzhewenhua Gallery in the 798 District of Beijing.

the three yuan note

‘My last name used to be Yehe, a Manchurian name. My ancestors together with other armies occupied Beijing from north of China at the beginning of Qing dynasty. There were over 7 courtyards and thousands of treasures belonging to my family at one point in time.

Upon retiring, my father presented me with three RMB as a gift. It was not until I saw the three-yuan note that I felt shocked. Not too long after New China’s was being established, around 1956 the former Soviet Union sent a lot of technical professors to assist with Chinese development, including creating and printing a version of currency, which contained this three RMB note. They returned to Russia soon after printing the note, leaving the 3RMB extremely rare and not well-known or circulated in markets. The waves of history gradually swallowed its figure. Things change, those courtyards and treasures are not here any longer, I cherished this note constantly, keeping it as witness of times past, as a memory.’

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The small box

‘This small box is from 1969 when Chairman Mao had a policy to go to ‘difficult villages’. This small box accompanied me when I was distributed to the Shanxi Provence, inside were some everyday objects, clothes and necessities.

I have not thrown it away because this box accompanied me through hard times in my life. It came with me to Shan Bei in a village Yuadong. I was designated to a small team of people called Liu Zhen Ta Team, Zhao An Group, An Ding Village, Shan Bei District. For four years I did farm work with the local farmer, planting crops, after this we were distributed to 5702 Factory, Wukung Town, Shanxi Province. It was a factory for repairing airplanes and I worked there until 1987 when this small box accompanied me back to Beijing.

To adhere to the policies of chairman Mao we went to the villages to do some ‘difficult work’ and these are the most memorable times of my life, therefore this box is looked after carefully by me and has lots of memories and meaning and I will keep in for ever.’

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Book of Changes, I Ching

 This is a new beginning for me, I have lived in Beijing for six months, I come from a village near Shijiazhuang in the Heibie Provence. I am working as a security guard at the Beijing Fashion Institute. I bought this book in a market in east Beijing the week I arrived in this new city. This book is my teacher.  It teaches me that life is a piece of paper and a pen, that a paper scroll is the beginning and the end, like life. I am copying out the book to learn about life and understand it more. This book is important to me as it is a new beginning, a new life for me in this new city.

three yuan note

small box

book of changes

Maiko Tsutsumi and I were invited to chair a panel discussion with the 2011 Jerwood Makers Open artists Heike Brachlow, Keith Harrison and Emmanuel Boos. Vimeo here

From the Jerwood site: 13 July – 28 August 2011

Jerwood Makers Open is a new open-submission initiative designed to support and showcase emerging artists working in the applied arts. This annual exhibition series offers bursaries to four makers to create new works, which will be exhibited as part of the Jerwood Visual Arts programme.

The artists selected for the 2011 Jerwood Makers Open are: Rapid prototype jeweller Farah Bandookwala, ceramic artist Emmanuel Boos, glass maker Heike Brachlow and installation artist Keith Harrison. Each artist was awarded £7,500 to create new work for the exhibition.

The four winners were selected from over 200 entries by Emmanuel Cooper, potter, writer, educator and critic, Siobhan Davies, choreographer and artistic director and Jonathan Watkins, curator, writer and Director of Ikon Gallery. They comment:

‘These makers are united by a deep fascination with their chosen material. From the use of contemporary technologies to ancient processes, they are each pushing the boundaries of craft practice, creating works that are exciting, inventive and at times dangerous.’

A series of events accompany the exhibition. For further information please visit the Talks & Events page

The seminar runs from 11am – 1pm. Participants can also access some 1:1 input with Karen and Francis from 1-2pm. The seminar is part of Craft NI’s Business Support Programme.

April-Sept 2011 Royal Festival Hall London

Fabiane Lee Perrella from FLOUR and I were invited to be part of the celebrating for the 60th Anniversary Celebrations of the Festival of Britain. Our work formed part of the the Avenue of Portraits which celebrated The People of Britain through a multitude of projects from around the UK.

Working from this idea of the traditional commemorative plates we invited people to the Royal Festival Hall on the weekend of the royal wedding to celebrate their love for each other and have their couples portrait professionally photographed. Fabiane and I then created designs for commemorative plates to celebrate the love across the UK. When the exhibition finished the plates will be send with Royal Mail Love to couples across the UK from Glasgow to Cornwall to Kent and to London. Thank you to all of this who took part, who shared stories of how they met we felt honoured that you could be a part of this with us.