Art Exchange, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ
5 October – 17 November 2023

“I Put a Spell on You explores today’s growing affinity with magic, which coincides with a time when we’re experiencing a profound loss of faith in modern society. Rationalism, science and the ‘progress’ of the modern era have left us lurching from one crisis to the next, while climate catastrophe calls into question our relationship with planet Earth. Against this backdrop, magic offers us an alternative universe – a space where we can become re-enchanted with the world again.

The artists in this show embrace magic, myth and mysticism as they explore alternative ways of thinking and being. They are guided by the historic figure of the witch – always close at hand in Essex where hundreds stood accused.”

I Put a Spell on You includes work by Alice Bucknell, Juno Calypso, Leonora Carrington, Chiara Fumai, Serena Korda, Akinsola Lawanson, susan pui san lok, Freddie Robins and Tai Shani.

Curated by Jess Twyman
Photography: Douglas Atfield

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Gallery Season (SZN), 92 Brick Lane, London E1
13 – 16 July 2023

…proliferating materialities… is an exhibition bringing together researchers from the royal college of art under the banner of the material engagement… in an exhibition which evidences various approaches to material (whatever this means) informed research… through artworks… text… and… moving image… the exhibition explores the various ways artists andresearchers apply practice-led and theoretical approaches… artworks employ poetic… creative… tacit… and… embodied ways of expressing new forms of knowledge…considering the fluid traversal of knowledge between making… and… thinking…

Exhibitors include:
Felicity Aylieff, Jonathan Boyd, Heike Brachlow, Steve Brown, Annie Cattrell, Sarah Cheang, Johnny Golding, Rebecca de Quin, Celia Dowson, Peter Oakley, Mah Rana, Freddie Robins, Michael Rowe, Katie Spragg, Jo Stockham, Katharina Vones, Max Warren, RCA Material Engagements PhD Group.

For more information about the RCA Material Engagements Research Cluster

Freddie Robins’ new work funded by a-n Artists Bursaries 2021: Time Space Money

JGM Gallery, 24 Howie Street, Battersea, London SW11 4AY
9 November 2022 – 21 January 2023

Creature Comforts: an exhibition of daring contemporary textiles.

Exhibiting Be afraid, 2019 (top image, work on right) and COU-RAGE, 2022 (bottom images, second work from left).

Exhibiting alongside Alice Kettle, Andia Newton, Elina Flyrin, Freddie Robins, Hamish Halley, Heidi Pearce, Karolina Dworska, Lara Salous, Liza Dickson, Lola Pedersen, Martin Maloney, Molly Kent, Sebastian Sochan and Woo Jin Joo.

Curated by Karolina Dworska.
Photography: Daniel Browne.

jgmgallery.com

The Jumper Chair (2022) was made in collaboration with designer Carl Clerkin as part of his Beasley Brothers Repair Shop installation in the Eternally Yours – Care, Repair and Healing exhibition at Somerset House, London. Clerkin was commissioned to build a functioning repair shop in the galleries of Somerset House. SCP along with Very Good and Proper, Ercol, Pearson Lloyd, Jasper Morrison Studio and John Tree Studio all donated components to the shop. Broken parts, excess stock, and waste material were sent to be repurposed. Clerkin and a host of designer-makers set to work, breathing life into unwanted materials.

Robins used an old hand knitted sweater to dress an Ercol steam bent bow that was connected to a Very Good and Proper chair base and plywood seat shell to make the chair. The Jumper Chair was exhibited during Eternally Yours – Care, Repair and Healing, Somerset House, London (13 July – 20 September 2022), Material Matters design fair, that took place during the London Design Festival (22 – 25 September 2022) and SCP, London (4 – 12 October 2022), culminating in a live auction of all the Beasley Brothers Repair Shop products.

Exhibiting as part of The Blackwater Polytechnic (Ben Coode-Adams, Sara Impey, Justin Knopp and Simon Emery – The Paintbox) with the collaborative work, Tree, in the Craftspace national touring exhibition, We are Commoners: Creative Acts of Commoning. Touring from 2021 – 2022.

The exhibition highlights acts of ‘commoning’ that are shaping the way communities are working together to share and steward commonly owned assets and resources. It also investigates craft as a form of commons through knowledge, materials, practice and heritage.

Exhibiting alongside Amy Twigger Holroyd, Deirdre Nelson, Hefin Jones (ODG Assembly), Linda Brothwell, Jacky Oliver, Common Agency Projects (Shane Waltener & Laura Glaser), Lise Bjørne Linnert with Gelawesh Waledkhani, Rachael Colley, Alinah Azadeh, Kate Hodgson, Ele Carpenter, Pinkie Maclure, Alice McLean and Justine Boussard, Claudia Rodriguez, Ana Joaquina Ramirez and Rosina Santana Castellon.

Exhibition opened at Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, Wales, touring to Leicester Gallery, De Montfort University, Leicester; Devon Guild of Craftsmen, Bovey Tracey, Devon; The Civic, Barnsley; National Centre for Craft and Design, Sleaford, The Gallery, Hull Central Library and We are the Minories, Colchester.

Photography: Dewi Tannatt Lloyd

360˚ virtual tour of exhibition

craftspace.co.uk