LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL 2023

'MAKING IT : THE LANDSCAPE OF CRAFT, ART AND DESIGN TODAY’ A symposium

Gareth will be speaking on the afternoon panel at this symposium with Sarah Myerscough Gallery.

About:

Craft - good craft - grants us access to a different way of understanding the world. It can feed into an emotional and social relationship with material, objects and our shared or disparate cultural histories. Craft grounds us, it helps us through touch, through its narrative and objecthood, to relate to the world around us. In an increasingly digital world, craft can grow our understanding of reality.

The morning session of our symposium will start with an Introduction to Contemporary Craft by renowned craft curator and critic, Corinne Julius. She will take the audience through her contentions about what makes craft, and the act of making, so valuable in society today. She will explore some of the key ideas and debates in this specialist sector of design; she will make suggestions about how best to define what craft is today, how it can or should fit in the spectrum of art and design, and why we should care.

For the first panel Corinne will place the ideas from her introduction up for discussion to guests occupying key roles in the Craft sector. The panel will consist of a gallerist - Sarah Myerscough, a collector of craft and a museum specialist working across craft and design. We will hear their expert insight into the meaning and value of craft from their particular locations within the landscape, as they offer their personal take on Corinne’s position.

The afternoon panel will bring together Gareth Neal, Nic Webb and Eleanor Lakelin, all highly respected successful artist/designers in the craft world. The discussion will centre around their practices as makers of craft, what craft means to them and what it is to make it today. Gareth Neal creates artworks and furniture, he harmoniously unites traditional and digital techniques to produce dynamic, innovative and thought provoking works of 3D printed sand and CNC or hand-worked wood. Nic Webb’s work oscillates between the functional and purely aesthetic, yet he is led, not so much by notions of utility but by following an emotional connection to the unique form of a gnarled trunk or split branch to find new sculptural works. He explores a conversation between himself and the tree, embracing the cracks and warping imperfections. Eleanor Lakelin’s sculptural objects of Horse Chestnut Burr are created using centuries-old techniques, alongside modern tools and carving methods. Her vessels appear like archaeological objects pulled from the ground. Her work references classical forms, time-weathered, where smooth bleached planes, seemingly ossified, rhythmically yield to knotted sections of burr.

A buffet lunch will be provided between the morning and afternoon sessions and will be followed by a drinks reception on our private Mayfair terrace. At both the lunch and reception audiences are invited and encouraged to engage with our experts and artists to enhance their understanding of contemporary craft in an informal setting.

Location: 34 North Row , London, W1k 6DH

Date: 23rd of September 2023