The month in craft - our October Roundup 🎃
The month in craft - our October Roundup 🎃
Sumptuous silk mosaics, fabulous new Bernat Klein textile fellowships and conjuring surreal witchy vibes for Halloween...
Welcome to our October Roundup! This month, Decorating Dissidence’s Jade French co-curated CROSSOVERS with Nastasia Alberti, which placed painter Caroline Derveaux in conversation with weaver Sara Kelly, in a celebration of colour, line and shape - and the pair spoke to us about the connections between their practices. After visiting the Whitworth’s exhibition on textile designer Shirley Cravan earlier this year, we also explored her work for Hull Traders. This month, we’re looking forward to seeing Haegue Yang’s kinetic craft, attending an exciting panel event on The Lives and Legacies of Black Women Ceramicists, and doing lots of cosy, craft reading. Scroll on for more!
Exhibitions and Events
Margaret Howell’s store at 34 Wigmore Street, London hosts a sumptuous display of postwar design pioneer Lucienne Day’s handcrafted silk mosaics. Best known for the iconic mid-century printed furniture fabrics she displayed at the 1951 Festival of Britain and designed for Heal’s and Edinburgh Weaver’s, this exhibition of silk mosaics offers a new perspective on a lesser known facet of Day’s multitalented design practice. Lucienne Day, Silk Mosaics 1975-1993, until 3rd November.
At the Hayward Gallery, Haegue Yang: Leap Year celebrates Yang’s eclectic aesthetic, which brings together a variety of crafts, techniques and materials to tap into the diverse cultural connotations they carry - household objects come together with textiles, paper, and sequins in dazzling, kinetic displays that speak on intimate, political and spiritual levels. Until 5th January 2025.
London’s Fashion and Textile Museum takes us back to the hedonistic world of legendary 1980s London nightclub Taboo this winter, celebrating the way that fashion, popular culture, and music collided in this era-defining moment. A hotbed for DIY style, Taboo influenced the development of designers including John Galliano and Pam Hogg, and blurred the boundaries between performance art and fashion. Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London runs until 9th March 2025.
Don’t miss! Igshaan Adams’ stunning exhibition Weerhoud ends at the Hepworth Wakefield on 3rd November.
On 6th November Paul Mellon Centre hosts an exciting panel event on The Lives and Legacies of Black Women Ceramicists, featuring Bisila Noha, Dr Jareh Das, Isis Dove-Edwin, and Ozioma Onuzulike. The event marks the premier screening of Jareh’s film The Enduring Legacy of Ladi Kwali, a documentary that explores post-colonial perspectives in Nigerian and British studio pottery. In person (with drinks reception) or online, 5-7pm.
Read/Listen
Halloween is the perfect time to look back at Issue Six of the Decorating Dissidence Journal Witch/Craft. In this issue, we look at crafty crones, spinning wheels, potions, rituals, and the intimate link between ‘women’s work’ and witchcraft, featuring Xenobia Bailey, ritual poetry by Nisha Ramayya, and the Black Power Tarot Deck.
And for uncanny costume inspiration, don’t miss our recent feature on surreal textiles Unravelling a Century of Surrealism - we look at how Surrealist artists used craft to create new worlds, from Dorothea Tanning’s unsettling soft sculptures to Meret Oppenheim’s furry fashion and Leonora Carrington’s magical tapestries.
We’re loving Season 2 of The Metropolitan Museum’s Immaterial Podcast! Each episode asks: what is hiding in the material choices of artists and makers? An episode on Blankets and Quilts with special guest Loretta Pettway Bennett is a real highlight, with the conversation revolving around the question of what happens when our most intimate possessions end up in art museums?
new zine on hand stitching, which you can download for free. The zine includes instructions for sewing five different stitches and uses illustrations from 19th-century sewing manuals.Opportunities
Fellowship: Exciting news for textile designers based in Scotland or Sweden! Cove Park have partnered with the Bernat Klein Foundation and Konstfack University of the Arts, Craft, and Design, Stockholm, to launch a new Fellowship programme for textile designers and textile artists. The Fellowships are fully funded and include residencies and support with research and the development of new work. More information here, deadline 22 November.
Job: There are currently three exciting openings at London’s Mosaic Rooms, a leading non-profit art organisation that showcases contemporary culture from the Arab world and beyond. More info about roles in development, finance, and communications over on its website, deadline 5th November.
Job: Two brilliant opportunities for textile curators and conservators at Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford: two 3 year posts funded by Clothworkers’ Company, working on global textiles with communities and a commitment to co-curation and cultural care. Apply before noon on 15th November.
Research: For Art History’s 2025 Annual Conference takes part in April at the University of York and there are some interesting panels open for submissions - check out calls to join Cora Chalaby and Max Boersma’s “Abstraction, Artisanal Knowledge and Craft Epistemologies” and Daniel Fountain and Gabe Beckhurst’s “The Politics of the Handmade: Textures, Feelings and the Matter of Trans Art History”. Deadline 1st November.