Freddie Robins will be exhibiting with the Blackwater Polytechnic as part of the Anglian Embassy at Sluice Expo 2025, Seyðisfjörður, Iceland hosted by Sluice and LungA School.

More information to follow soon…….

blackwaterpolytechnic

Freddie Robins will be exhibiting with the Blackwater Polytechnic as part of the Anglian Embassy at Supermarket Art Fair, SKHLM Skärholmen Centrum, Stockholm, Sweden

Thursday 3 April to Saturday 5 April 12.00 – 20.00
Sunday 6 April 12.00 – 18.00

supermarketartfair
blackwaterpolytechnic

The Anglian Embassy, a collaboration between Blackwater Polytechnic (Braintree), 303 Projects (Lowestoft), Grange Projects (Great Cressingham), Original Projects, Possible Worlds, and Red Herring Press (Great Yarmouth), will showcase East Anglian artists at Supermarket in Stockholm. Ben Coode-Adams and Sophie Giller have developed, designed and built our stand.

We are committed to establishing practical, long-term partnerships with artist-run organisations in East Anglia for mutual benefit and to share skills, resources, and creative people. Our coastline and hinterland are now studded with artist-run projects. This project will serve as a strategic roadmap for future collaborations, empowering artist-run spaces to be bold and effective in supporting artists to create ambitious new work.

Through this initiative, we will introduce our region on an international stage. We are eager to revitalise connections with our close neighbours—organisations and individuals around the North Sea who share our rich heritage. After all, Antwerp is nearer to us than Manchester. Participating in this expo is a cost-effective approach and a powerful way to connect with organisations and individuals who can create opportunities for us to advance projects both locally and abroad, making the most of our resources.

Our region is in the midst of a transformative revolution in green energy, population growth, and gravel extraction. While we experience our own Industrial Revolution and urbanisation—albeit two centuries later than everyone else—we find ourselves culturally and politically unprepared. Our ecologically fragile coastline hosts 90 million migrating birds on fast-eroding mudflats and salt marshes. This project will engage our counterparts across the North Sea who are facing similar challenges.

Our objectives are clear: elevate the profile of our region’s visual arts both internally and externally, create a forum to discuss our shared cultural orbit around the North Sea, and initiate collaborative international projects through networking.

Ultimately, we aspire to cultivate an atmosphere of inclusion and support that empowers all artists—regardless of their background—to flourish and enhance the vibrant artistic landscape of our region. By uniting our efforts and resources, we will not only reinforce our local arts community but also make a meaningful impact on a wider scale, amplifying our voices across borders and shaping the future of the arts in the North Sea area.
Statement by Ben Coode-Adams

MEDUSA, curated by Mike Chavez-Dawson

Union Gallery
94 Teesdale Street
London
E2 6PU

Preview Saturday 22 February 2025 1-6pm
Exhibition runs until 22 March 2025
Open Thursday – Saturday 12-6pm and by appointment
020 8281 4448
sales@uniongallery.com
uniongallery.com

Featuring:
Ada Bond
Brass Art
Jane Chavez-Dawson
Mike Chavez-Dawson & AI, with Rebecca Davy
Karen Densham
Sarah Hardacre
Sam Owen Hall
Hilary Jack
Rachel Goodyear
Ruth Murray
Freddie Robins
Angela Tait
Nye Thompson
Jessica Voorsanger
Jude Wainwright
Evita Ziemele

Read the review by Jo Manby in the Fourdrinier here

Freddie Robins’ limited-edition tea towel, Ghosts, is specially commissioned for Art at Home. It is made in the UK, and digitally printed on long lasting and sustainable union linen.
Size: 78 × 48 cms
Price: £18.00

View + buy from the Tea Towel Art Collection on the Art at Home website

Art at Home presents a curated choice of affordable artworks for your home, available to buy online.
Devised by Kath Wood and inspired by her lifelong passion to connect artists to new audiences, Art at Home is the culmination of more than 30 years of working with artists, galleries and museums across the UK. This venture showcases new collections of art by living artists which changes seasonally. Browse over 60 affordable artworks and delve into the artists’ inspirations and techniques in the Artist Profiles section.

Craft Kills, held in the Crafts Council Collection, is exhibited as part of 5&20. The exhibition celebrates two shared milestones; five years of the Brookfield Properties Craft Award and 20 years of Collect Art Fair.

This one-off celebration show, supported with funding from London EC BID, exhibits over 30 artworks from Crafts Council collection, with a direct link to Collect. These objects, which form part the national collection for craft, include ceramics, jewellery, glass, bronze and textiles. Many have not been shown to the public for years.

99 Bishopsgate, London EC2
Monday to Saturday 9.00am – 5.00pm
Free entrance

For more information

To download the Artist 5&20 Booklet

The Blackwater Polytechnic is an imaginary educational institution in Essex, United Kingdom, based in a tangible sixteenth-century barn. The campus’s old-world charm belies its cutting-edge focus on ‘the technology of enchantment’. The local artists who comprise the faculty and present their applied research are highly qualified in hands-on innovation, meeting real-world challenges.

Ben Coode-Adams, Dr Annabel Dover, Sophie Giller, Tilly Hawkins, Sara Impey, Justin Knopp and Professor Freddie Robins are set to unveil a diverse collection of art and artefacts. Each piece holds the potential for immeasurable value and could be the key to unlocking the Secrets of the Universe.

If you want to be INTERESTING then you need to be SPECIFIC. Being SPECIFIC means taking account of your CONTEXT. Only by grounding yourself in your CONTEXT do you become universally INTERESTING.

We are intrigued by the ramifications of the word hoard in its archaeological sense—things of value lumped together in a hole in the ground, often hard to find and then unpick. Our neighbourhoods of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk are littered with them, reflecting the imperilled edginess of our geography. We are the first place where merchants and marauders make landfall. There is opportunity here, along with risk.

As with an ancient hoard of artefacts, it can be hard to disentangle straightforward literal meaning in our presentation. There is no right answer. Better to let the mind and eye soften into poetic associative freedom. There is no need to be distrustful of enjoying sensations and emotions filtered only by our senses. As we are adrenaline junkies for new ways of thinking visually, so we like these chancy visual conversations.

Here at the Polytechnic, we walk the line between collecting and hoarding. We are in thrall to artefacts, both supremely masterfully crafted and improvised, rough and ready. We do not apologise for the density and richness of our presentation. Time is the friend of the thoughtful.

Bankley Studios & Gallery, Bankley Street, Manchester M19 3PP

Private View Friday 6th September 18.00-21.00. All welcome
Exhibition runs from 7th-22nd September
Open Saturdays + Sundays 12.00-16.00

Blackwater Polytechnic
Bankley Studios & Gallery

Thread Count. An exhibition of contemporary textile practice in two parts, co-curated by Freddie Robins and The Art Station, Saxmundham, Suffolk.

Exhibiting artists: Rosie Edwards, Woo Jin Joo, Sophie Giller, Feifan Hu, Daisy Collingridge, Andrew Omoding, Jevan Watkins Jones, Freddie Robins, Peter Collingwood, Rebecca Riess, Mikey Cuddihy, Julie Cockburn, Abigail Lane, Srinivas Surti, Annabel Elgar, John Craske, Emily Cannell and William Wallace.

Part One
Opening event: Saturday 8 June 2024 at Sax Arts Fest, 12 – 5 pm. All welcome.
The Old Bank, 24 High Street, Saxmundham, IP17 1AJ
and
The Lobby at The Art Station, 48 High Street, Saxmundham, IP17 1AB
Open Wednesday – Saturday, 12 – 4pm (or by appointment any other time), until Saturday 31 August 2024.

Part Two
Including new site-specific large-scale textile installation by Sophie Giller.
The Old Theatre, Framlingham, IP13 9BH
Opening event: Saturday 6 July 2024, 12 – 4 pm. All welcome.
Open Wednesday – Sunday, 12 – 4 pm (or by appointment any other time) until Sunday 21 July 2024

All exhibitions are free of charge
Thread Count is supported by the East Anglia Art Fund.

Thread Count presents textiles as a medium for self-expression and communication. Here, the role of textiles is not about its decorative and functional qualities, although these qualities are not to be disregarded. Materials and processes carry meaning, and the presence of skill does not indicate the absence of concept. The artists in Thread Count work with thread, fibre and cloth for many reasons, but there is a strong undercurrent of a desire for creative and physical freedom. This freedom is expressed through the choice of materials, processes and imagery. Working in textiles can give you the freedom to work wherever you want. For the most part, the work is light; it can be folded or rolled up and easily stored or transported. The materials are readily available and can be cheap or even free if you reuse fabric items from around the home. Textiles and textile practitioners still find themselves and their practice undervalued or dismissed because of the medium’s enduring associations with gender and the domestic environment. This exhibition tramples over those preconceptions, evidencing the hard resolve of the soft discipline. Threads count.

Find out more here

The exhibition brings together practice-based and material-led academics from the Royal College of Art highlighting the research taking place under the umbrella of the Material Engagements Research Cluster (MERC). There will also be a series of open workshops and talks over the weekend.
Please see the RCA website for further information.

Pump House Gallery, Battersea Park, London SW11 4NJ

Opening Times:

• Thursday 11 July, 12:00pm – 5:30pm (Private View open to all 5.30pm – 9pm)
• Friday 12 July, 12:00pm – 5:30pm
• Saturday 13 July, 12:00pm – 5:30pm

The Blackwater Polytechnic are showing at Sluice [Vernacular] Colchester Expo 2024.

The Minories, 74 High Street, Colchester, Essex CO1 1UE
Friday 14 – Sunday 16 June 2024
10h – 16h daily
Free entry to all venues
Some events may require booking, please see programme

The 2024 Sluice expo centres on the idea of the vernacular, exploring how culture can emerge and adapt in reaction to various influences, whether structural or ethical. The expo is an opportunity for a loosely defined sector, encompassing artist-led initiatives, curator-led projects, collectives, non-profit organisations and galleries to converge.

Sluice is a non-profit initiative based in the UK, led by artists and curators. Since 2011 Sluice has collaborated exclusively with other artist and curator-led projects, collectives and non-profit initiatives. They create multi-faceted events around the world, focusing on the local in a transnational context. Sluice vernacular was developed in partnership with the Minories.

The current faculty at the Blackwater Polytechnic is Ben Coode-Adams (Vice-Chancellor & President), Dr Annabel Dover, Tristan Howe (Associate Lecturer), Sara Impey (Senior Lecturer), Dr Alex Pearl and Professor Freddie Robins. Professor Knopphauser is on sabbatical.

For more information
sluice
the minories

Cedric Bardawil
1–3 Old Compton Street, London W1D 5JB
Open Wednesday to Saturday, 12–6pm
Or by appointment
cedric@cedricbardawil.com
+44 (0)20 7287 1175

cedricbardawil.com
theamberroom.com