14 Sept - 4 Nov 2007 | Main Gallery
Design Mart: Showcasing the next generation of design stars
Design Mart is an annual survey of work by emerging designers, curated and toured by the Design Museum, London. As part of The Hub’s commitment to supporting new design talent, we return to this exciting series after successfully hosting Design Mart 2005.
Design Mart highlights a shift towards a darker, more demanding and hard edged approach to technology, form and content.
Philip Worthington and Tim Simpson take a surreal and slightly sinister approach to design, experimenting with sophisticated technologies to create emotive installations. Worthington, works with light projection and computer technology to bring visitors face-to-face with surreal ‘living’ Shadow Monsters which they can interact with in the gallery.
Other designers are provocative in the way their work is conceived, such as &made’s climatised objects for emergency situations and their furniture assembled from the detritus of society. Nadine Jarvis creates poetic crematory urns and bird feeders, Peter Marigold, Viable and Max Lamb, all create furniture and lighting designs that are refined but challenging.
29 Sept - 18 Nov | Roof Gallery
Class of 2007: Strut their stuff
Class of 2007 is a Hub curated exhibition of exceptional contemporary craft and design work by recent UK graduates. The exhibition exposes new and emerging trends to making and designing across the disciplines of contemporary metalwork, jewellery, lighting, ceramics, glass, furniture, design products and textiles.
Class of 2007 brings together the freshest voices launching their careers in the craft and design sector. The work presents the dynamic interplay between making and designing, as well as hinting towards the direction of contemporary craft and design for this century.
Many works in the exhibition will be for sale.
16 Nov - 20 Jan 2008 | Main Gallery
the Pot, the Vessel, the Object
The crafts are strong in the UK. Amongst a large number of reasons are a proud history of manufacture where individuals have been valued for their making skills, and the Arts and Crafts movement of the late C19. This movement looked back to a rich past, and forward to new ways of making and sharing wonderful objects.
The Craft Potters Association is fifty years old this year. Its first members came together to celebrate the crafts and to be particular advocates for pottery - membership rules are very simple - amongst them that prospective ‘members must possess a kiln and a mark (the potter’s trademark seal). The outcome was an organisation of great diversity that has been hugely influential.Aside from regular exhibitions, conferences and other meetings the CPA established Ceramics Review, a magazine read all over the world.
the Pot, the Vessel, the Object brings together the work of forty seven ceramists who represent the broadest possible spread of CPA activity. They include relative newcomers as well as doyens and masters. Amongst them are Walter Keeler and Jane Hamlyn, who have done much to develop salt glazing, Takeshi Yasuda and Emmanuel Cooper, whose attention to form is a matter of some genius and Sandy Brown and Simon Carroll, who bring joyful forms and expression filled imagery. It is as brilliant a mix of talent, skill and approach to ceramics as anyone could hope for.
The exhibition will be opened at 6pm, Thursday 15 November by Emmanuel Cooper, one of CPA’s most influential members, whose stewardship as editor, alongside others, of Ceramics Review has been profoundly important.
16 Nov - 20 Jan 2008 | Shop
Midlands Potters Association
The Craft Potters Association has a long history of working alongside regional brothers and sisters. They share many members. The Midlands Potters Association covers a broad swathe across the centre of the country, from the Welsh borders to The Wash. The Hub is delighted to host a selected exhibition of MPA members’ work, mirroring the richness and diversity of the Pot, the Vessel and the Object.
16 Nov - 20 Jan 2008 | Main Gallery
Thinking in Parallel with Branston Community College
Upper school students from Branston have been working with potter Pete Moss to make a series of large scale pots to set aside the work of the Crafts Potters Association members. The brief has been simple - to adopt a high quality approach to the design and quality of making.
16 Nov - 20 Jan 2008 | Window Space
Katrin Jaeger
Germany-based Katrin Jaeger creates contemporary jewellery pieces. A special feature of Jaeger’s work is the tiny ceramic vessels she creates. Jaeger uses her work to investigate the functional and decorative qualities of ceramic vessels in brooches, necklaces, rings and earrings. She takes the familiar form of ceramic vessels as re-contextualises ‘the vessels’ function as objects to adorn the body. The results are vibrant and refined jewellery pieces.
On display will be designs from Jaeger’s new collection, ‘Use of Materials and Forms’. These new works combine precious metals with more delicate material such as gemstones, pearls and dried fruit.
24 Nov - 6 Jan 2008 | Roof Gallery
Christmas Lights: Bright ideas in contemporary lighting
Recognising the mediums potential for creativity, recent years has seen an increased interest from designermakers in the application of lighting in design. This has resulted in an array of clever, conceptual and dramatic products, available to purchase for your home or commission for an architectural installation.
Whether a decorative object, a conceptual statement or an architectural feature; with a flick of a switch, lighting changes an environment. From grand chandeliers which define a space, to funky table lights which discreetly poke fun at it’s user, this exhibition presents an array of lighting products, designed with various objectives in mind.
As well as considering function, the exhibition will also explore how new materials and manufacturing technologies have enabled designers to develop new and unusual structures.
With Christmas in mind, many of the exhibits will be for sale or can be made to order. Prices start at £10 and The Hub also participates in the Own Art scheme. Designed solely for art lovers, Own Art provides interest free credit on purchases over £100.
