Industry Participants
Maxine Clarke, Projects Coordinator at Cockpit Arts
Cockpit Arts is London’s leading studios for contemporary crafts and the UK’s only business incubator for makers and designers. We are home to over 140 independent creative businesses at our sites in Deptford and Holborn. We offer an expert business support package and dedicated studio space to enable makers setting out on their careers, as well as those more established, to make the most of their talent. Some 20% of our studio holders are supported through Awards and Bursaries, funded by City of London Livery Companies, trusts and foundations, and individual and corporate sponsors.
Dr Gwen Fereday is a Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University and a practicing artist. She has written a book on Natural Dye processes which has become a standard work for textile conservators and restoration work and has matched colours for industry and individual designers. Currently she is working towards an exhibition of woven work that uses the alphabet colours of the five grapheme synaesthetes she worked with for her doctorate. She has work in private collections in the UK, Europe, the USA and has commissions Bahrein and the UK and last year presented her works in gallery spaces in London and Paris.
Alice Timmis is an ‘artisan manufacturer’ of woven fashion fabrics. She studied at The Royal College of Art, prior to setting up her textile business. She designs on her hand loom with a painterly approach and works with industrial mills to produce on a larger scale. Once fabrics have been woven and are off the industrial loom, she applies hand finishing techniques (fil coupè, brushing, needle punch, embroidery, painting) to disrupt the fabric surface - merging craft and the machine. Chanel, Kate Spade, Sadie Williams and Richard Malone are amongst those who have bought Alice’s fabrics and designs.
Jodie Ruffle is a Freelance Embroidery Designer and Fashion Textiles Lecturer. After graduating, Jodie gained experience working for Jonathan Saunders, Alexander McQueen, Preen and Martine Rose. Her work is now focused on embroidery development & luxury craft. Collaborations include: Gurls’ Talk, Fashion Revolution, Ellie MacDonald, Odda Magazine, N0thing Magazine and Period Magazine, as well as ongoing design & development roles with Ashish, Mih Jeans, Kurt Geiger & DMC
Cassandra Quinn
CQ Studio is a multidisciplinary design company with a focus on sustainable material innovation. Fusing technology, traditional craft and biology they work to create a more sustainable fashion industry. Founder Cassie is also currently the first cohort on the MA Biodesign at CSM with a BA in Fashion Textiles. Before joining Makerversity on the Makers With a Mission residency she was a designer in residence at BRIA and exhibiting work at Opencell and Future Fabrics Expo.
Nathaniel Petre
Nathaniel Petre is a post-PhD researcher from the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London. After 3D printing the world's first surfboard made from algae, Nathaniel began using ocean plastic waste as a resource for local, agile manufacturing. Over the last two years, he's built the largest 3D printer in the Caribbean as well as pioneering Jamaica's first 3D printed underwater sculpture park. Nate's projects aim to equip both the community and researchers alike with the tools to develop novel solutions to the growing problems of ocean plastic pollution, invasion by seaweed, coral restoration and ultimately a means of sustaining an economy and ecosystem locally.
Kerem Asfuroglu
Kerem Asfuroglu is a lighting designer and graphic artist with a great interest in darkness and cities at night. He is the founder of Dark Source - a creative studio based in London driven by social and environmental values. Following his graduation from Wismar University - Architectural Lighting Design MA in 2010, Asfuroglu worked at Speirs + Major, as a member of the senior creative team for almost 8 years. Throughout his career, he worked on a diverse range of projects and won several awards including the Red Dot, PLDC and LAMP. He was awarded the title of Dark Sky Defender by IDA for his work advocating the importance of darkness. His graphic stories and articles which question the society's relationship with light and darkness are published in Arc magazine since 2013.
Shelley James
Dr Shelley James is a glass artist and lighting consultant. She is fascinated by the dynamic conversation between eye and brain that conjures up the experience of a stable world. Her research-led practice is fuelled by conversations with scientists from many different fields, from psychology to physics. Her work is in public and private collections all over the world, including the Corning Studio in New York and the New Hall Cambridge Collection of Women Artists. Shelley is a Maker with a Mission at the Makerversity, Associate Artist at King’s College, London and at UCL and teaches at the Royal College of Art.
Collect Makers who will also join us
LOT is a collaborative project between three makers: jewellers Sarah Pulvertaft and Jed Green with embroiderer Beatrice Mayfield. Their work is united through the importance of materiality, pattern, movement and a thoughtful use of colour. Each of them imaginatively transforms raw materials into beautifully crafted, wearable objects.
Liana Pattihis and Sofia Björkman are both jewellery artists based in London and Stockholm respectively. Their collaboration is presented as a Vertical Wall Garden, comprising a collection of enamelled chain jewellery and 3D hand drawings. Both their techniques push boundaries and are far from traditional.
Tal Batit was born in 1988 and graduated with distinction from H.I.T, Israel. His eponymous studio specialises in innovative ceramic design, sculptures and talkative objects. Batit mixes inspiration from ancient ceramic traditions and cultures with a contemporary palette and finish, giving a distinct post-modernist flair to his quirky creations while retaining the artisanal quality of the natural materials.
Julia Griffiths Jones is an award-winning Welsh artist-maker, who studied at the Royal College of Art and is best known for her drawings of textiles that she translates into steel wire and enamel. For Collect Open 2020 Griffiths Jones has created new work in textile and metal in response to a residency she undertook in Kachchh, Gujarat in 2017.
Paula Reason's machine-embroidered sculptural silk panels provide an insight into the relationship that three established craftspeople have with their working environment. Nurture speaks about Kate Fedden's life at the heart of a creative family; Legacy reveals the objects and materials that have been central to Diana Springall's making process; and Michael Brennand-Wood's painful loss and recreation of a studio is countered in Renewal by pictorially wrapping the new studio in the 'comfort blanket' of the old.
Linda Bloomfield specialises in ceramic glazes and thrown porcelain. Her installation for Collect Open is a series of organic forms based on stromatolites and granite boulders. The work brings attention to the effect of climate change and pollution on lichens, which are indicators of clean air. They are sensitive to pollutants including sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide and ozone. Air pollution causes a gradual decrease in the diversity of lichens. She uses crawl glazes in ochre, viridian green and chalk white to represent the lichens. At first, the lichen effect glazes cover the forms abundantly, then gradually decrease until the forms are dark and barren.
