STUFF - Reinventing the Wheel 8-11th November

DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND THIS EXHIBITION HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO 20TH NOVEMBER 10AM-6PM MON-SAT, 11AM-4PM SUN

Reinventing the Wheel: What goes around comes around is an exhibition that highlighted the significance of traditional craft in a contemporary world. By using craft skills, creative objects were made by the Textiles students from Bath School of Art and Design. In my opinion craft is usually miss understood as old fashioned and perhaps out of touch. We currently live in a fast paced world where the turn around of consumer goods is around every six weeks. We chase fashionable items so fast is there time to use such intricate and time consuming processes? 

This time issue is perhaps the reason why craft is mistaken to originate from the longing for simpler times. The Textiles students were asked to learn and develop old techniques for the 21st century consumer. I believe craft is making a comeback since making do in the recession, a simple way to overcome our problems is to look back through time and see how we managed to before. With a growing public interest in environmentalism and sustainability we ask how environmentally friendly are certain making processes and how much waste is produced? Are there things we can do to improve this?

This map was created by my friend Polly Rowan, she made the felt herself and then used different tickets from around the world to create this map that she sewed onto the felt by hand. She also used plastic to create this cross stitch to fill in the spaces. My favorite part of the map is Australia because she went there over the summer and she used her flight ticket to fill the country in and it says miss Polly on it which I think is adorable. 

This lace making was created by my friend Hannah Ellicott. I know this process was very timely. Hannah died the yarns with tea and coffee to create these beautiful shades of brown. Hannah had to almost weave the yarn through and around different pins to form the pattern she designed and then she had to attach the yarn together before removing the pins which was a very long process but the end result was well worth it!