New galleries for 2017 include:
Bruntnell-Astley Ltd Contemporary Glass Gallery (UK),
Designer Bookbinders (UK), Galerie Michel Giraud (France), GENDRAS REGNIER (France),
Køppe Contemporary Objects (Denmark), MADEINBRITALY (UK), Maison Parisienne (France),
Sokyo Gallery (Japan), and Thalen & Thalen (Belgium). Over 30 galleries from the UK, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, the UAE, and the USA will represent the works of hundreds of artists.
 
Annie Warburton, Creative Director of the Crafts Council commented, “Known for presenting the most dynamic contemporary work from across the globe, Collect has led the
transformation of perceptions of what craft is and can be. Returning in 2017, the fair goes a step further. Alongside welcoming thirty-six of the world’s leading galleries, including eleven new exhibitors from three continents, this year we introduce a new element showcasing experimental new work. Alongside their main stand, six selected exhibitors will present ambitious, experimental installations by makers and artists pushing forward practice in ceramics, textiles, furniture and metal. Challenging and beguiling, Collect Spotlights are just one element in marking a fresh new direction for Collect in 2017.”

COLLECT SPOTLIGHTS
New for 2017 are Collect Spotlights, whereby a number of galleries have been selected to exhibit experimental work displayed in innovative ways that seek to challenge, excite, and create discussion with visitors to the fair.

The following galleries have been selected for the inaugural Collect Spotlights:
Flow Gallery, UK
Recent RCA graduate Katie Spragg will show an immersive work which evokes the feeling of daydreaming in a field. This Spotlight will include an installation including film and porcelain where the viewer is invited to lie back and escape.

Maison Parisienne, France
A presentation of works rarely seen in the UK by the established textile sculptor, Simone Pheulpin. With the immediate impression of porcelain or wood, these sculptures are created by a unique technique of folded cotton held together with a matrix of tiny pins.

Contemporary Applied Arts, UK
Contemporary Applied Arts have asked celebrated British silversmith Adi Toch to develop a radical new body of interactive silver vessels. An antedote to the traditional quiet reflection of a gallery environment these silver works will react to tones of voice around them. Toch is collaborating with sound engineers to create a subtle and sensitive interaction.

Vessel 39/230 DM15 and Vessel 94/180 DM15 by Ernst Gamperl, represented by Sarah Myerscough Gallery.

Photography by Angela Moore, styling by Despina Curtis.
At Cliffe I and At Cliffe II both by David Gates represented by Sarah Myerscough Gallery.
Photography by Angela Moore, styling by Despina Curtis.

Contemporary Applied Arts & Joanna Bird Contemporary Collections, UK
Contemporary Applied Arts and Joanna Bird Contemporary Collections are collaborating to present a ‘Forest’ of Rita Parniczky hanging textiles. This forest references the sliding doors of traditional domestic Japan whilst encompassing traditional techniques (the Leclerc loom) and the cutting edge (nylon monofilament instead of silk) in these architectural textiles.

Sarah Myerscough Gallery, UK
Renowned British makers David Gates (furniture) and Helen Carnac (metal) are collaborating on a new significant body of work: wooden structures with vitreous enamel detailing. Both artists have a different take on the manmade landscape - the ‘macro’ (David’s reference of industrial and agricultural architecture) and ‘micro’ (Helen references details on surfaces such as rust or codes on the side of cargo ships).

WCC-BF, Belgium
Safia Hijos’s Installation: "Play it again and again" (stoneware discs, smoke firing and sounds on a scratched record). This archaeoacoustic installation of ceramic and sound is derived from the artist’s interest in history and the concept that the voices of the ancient Greek potters of Athens could be inscribed on their pots.

With over 30 galleries showcasing their work in February, including work from eleven new galleries, the 2017 edition of Collect promises to provide the biggest and most important fair for international contemporary craft. 

Full List of Galleries Selected for Collect 2017
Voided Vessel, by Eleanor Lakelin, represented by Sarah Myerscough Gallery.
Photography by Angela Moore, styling by Despina Curtis.
ARTCOURT Gallery (Japan); Bishopsland Educational Trust (UK); Bruntnell-Astley Ltd
Contemporary Glass Gallery (UK); Bullseye Projects (USA); Collection Ateliers D'Art De
France (France); Contemporary Applied Arts (UK); Cynthia Corbett Gallery (UK); Designer Bookbinders (UK); Exhibition Space APJ (Japan); Flow Gallery (UK); Galerie Marzee (Netherlands); Galerie Michel Giraud (France); Galerie Rosemarie Jäger (Germany); Gallery Format Oslo (Norway); Gallery S O (UK); Galerie Gendras Regnier (France); Jaggedart (UK); Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council (UAE), Joanna Bird Contemporary Collections (UK); Katie Jones (UK); Køppe Contemporary Objects (Denmark); Korea Craft Design Foundation (Korea); London Glassblowing Gallery (UK); MADEINBRITALY (UK); Maison Parisienne (France); Officine Saffi (Italy); Petronilla Silver (UK); Ruthin Craft Centre (UK); Sarah Myerscough Gallery (UK); Sokyo Gallery (Japan); Thalen & Thalen (Belgium); The Scottish Gallery (UK); Vessel Gallery (UK); WCC-BF Gallery (Belgium); and Widell Projects (Sweden)

Selected by a judging panel led by esteemed British designer and curator, Faye Toogood, Collect Open is staged alongside the Collect galleries, offering craft makers who are not represented by a traditional gallery, or those seeking to collaborate on work the opportunity to present unexpected and inspiring work that pushes boundaries. This year, Collect Open participants were challenged by the Crafts Council to experiment with scale and drama. All 14 Collect Open artworks are new, ambitious, large-scale, and conceptual, and are developed specially for Collect 2017. The Crafts Council instigated Collect Open to support both established and emerging artists to create more exploratory and risk-taking work. It introduces the artists to new audiences including curators, collectors and sector professionals, and it nurtures talent and supports market development.

Faye Toogood commented: “Collect Open is an unrivalled occasion to celebrate and display a wide range of artworks and objects formed from the most fundamental of materials - from nature - and to put the spotlight onto the makers and artists from all over the world creating works in the craft arena. The makers selected for Collect Open 2017 showed above all a consideration of emotion in their proposals, acknowledging their own and their viewers' experiences, and this meaning is imbued in the final concepts and works. Whilst all presenting very different final projects, I feel all are pushing the boundaries of what we expect in the area of craft and showing what is still possible to explore and achieve. I am much looking forward to seeing their finished designs in February.”

Rosy Greenlees, Executive Director, Crafts Council, said “Collect Open has been an important part of Collect since 2011. It is an opportunity for artists to be brave and challenge themselves to create new experimental work. We have seen some extraordinary installations over the years resulting in career-changing moments for the exhibitors. For visitors it presents an opportunity to gain real insight into the concept and process and talk directly to the artists who are with their work for the duration of the fair.”

COLLECT OPEN 2017 INSTALLATIONS
Collect Open presents 14 installations with works in porcelain, glass, fabric, paper, and wood. These include:
Soojin Kang: The Forest of the Mind (working title)
Kang will present a large floor installation, which seeks to highlight emotional sustainability through traditional craftsmanship and natural materials. The purpose and possibilities of Kang’s work can be interpreted in a variety of ways. It challenges a new aesthetic and conceptual statement, crossing the boundaries of flat weave and sculptural form, materiality and spirituality, questioning contradictions of nature – the hard and soft, the horror and the beauty, the lost and found. As a result, the pieces are displayed in a horizontal arrangement on the floor in a bright airy space, creating a meditative and poetic serenity while providing an opportunity to seek one’s own memories through an experience of the work’s materiality and peaceful rhythms.

Claire Curneen: Tending the Fires (working title)
Poignant reflections on the nature of humanity and our precarious place within it have long underscored Curneen’s practice, a career spanning over two decades. Her installation will include hand-built porcelain figures whose translucent and fragile presences explore universal themes of love, loss, suffering and sacrifice. These figures are in a constant state of change, where the ‘in-between’ embraces uncertainty and the unknown. Recent areas of interest derive from Curneen’s fascination with the exquisite crafted ceramic object, from the intricate detailing of the Fonthill Vase at the National Museum of Ireland, to the spectacular ‘Wall of Pots’ at CoCA, York Art Gallery. This will be one of Curneen’s most ambitious works to date.

Shelley James: Growth and Form: Crystalline Constellations
Shelley James will launch a new sculpture that extends her fascination with five-fold symmetry.
Plato characterised the elemental building blocks of the universe in terms of geometric forms, each with a balancing dual or twin. The 12-sided dodecahedron with its pentagonal faces was linked to mysterious phenomena such as the orbit of stars and the pull of gravity. Kepler filled his sketchbooks with this this subtle geometry that he called the 'flag of life' which lies at the heart of pioneering research into entanglement, uncertainty and the origins of the universe.
This new piece uses a ground-breaking technique that James has developed for this project to create complex cast geometries from 3D printed models. This stellated dodecahedron is built from 32 individual modules, will be placed on a tall circular plinth to represent the universal principle of equilibrium: a state of perfect balance achieved at the point of minimum energy. Each vertex will be illuminated by focused beams placed within the plinth. The intensity and temperature of the light will shift in response to an interactive panel that is being created by scientists at King's College, London.

Malene Hartmann Rasmussen
Hartmann Rasmussen will create a new large wall installation taking the forest as the central theme. Hartmann Rasmussen’s sculptural investigation and artistic impetus begins with a fascination of myth and nature. Her work draws on the idea of the sentient nature and the origin of animism in primitive cultures. Hartmann Rasmussen is deeply inspired by pagan legends and mythological creatures connected to nature such as The Green Man, Wodewose and Trolls. Since her graduation from the RCA in 2011, Hartmann Rasmussen’s interest in trompe l’oeil and the idea of incorporating faux two-dimensional elements into sculptural installations has grown stronger. Her piece for Collect Open is large-scale piece focused on trolls, and the forest as a place of enchantment.

Fay McCaul and Kia Utzon-Frank
Fay McCaul is a product designer, jewellery maker and inventor. Kia Utzon-Frank studied as a goldsmith, silversmith and metalworker at the RCA. The two designers are collaborating to create a large structure that combines each of the artist’s strengths, while being interactive and functional, featuring a theme of “playing with light”. McCaul and Utzon-Frank have created a 3m-long screen structure that curves into the gallery space allowing the viewer to move in and around the structure.
The fabric will be knitted with Italian cotton that embeds small clear perspex rods, some of which will be covered with Dichroic film. This film changes depending on the light from golds and greens to blues and purples. The fabric changes appearance depending from where it is viewed and how the piece is lit. The designers also intend for the yarn to subtly change colour along the length of the structure, either from light blue to dark blue or light grey to dark grey. Visitors will be able to move the comb modules up and down the fabric strips to create different patterns with the screen structure, which in turn will create ever-changing shadow patterns on the floor.

Collect Open presents the vanguard of contemporary craft and provides a valuable showcase for upcoming artists and makers, many of whom move on to be represented by the galleries that show at Collect. Collect Open also gives visitors the opportunity to see a selection of thoughtful new work that challenges perceptions of what craft should be.

Full list of Collect Open exhibitors:
Claire Curneen (UK), Domitilla Biondi (Italy), Fay McCaul and Kia Utzon-Frank (UK), Hugh Miller (UK), Julie Massie (UK), Malene Hartmann Rasmussen (UK), Richard McVetis (UK), Ruth Glasheen (UK), Seung Hyun Lee (Korea), Shelley James (UK), Silvia Weidenbach (UK), Soojin Kang (UK), Tanya Gomez (UK), Cheon Wooseon (South Korea)

Talk Programme:
Friday 3 February 
14:30
Connoisseurship
Curators Antonia Boström, V&A, Janice Blackburn, and Brian Kennedy discuss the role of connoisseurs with chair Talib Choudhry, Design & Interiors Editor of the Telegraph and Editor-at-Large at ELLE Decoration
 
16:00
Material Focus – Metalwork and Jewellery
Corinne Julius, curator and journalist, will draw out different perspectives and processes in discussion with jeweller and lecturer Christopher Thompson Royds, metal artist Juliette Bigley, Simon Fraser and Christina Jansen, Director of the Scottish Gallery.
 
Saturday 4 February
11:30
Craft, Architecture and Public Realm
Crafts Magazine editor, Grant Gibson is in conversation with Geoff Shearcroft and Gill Lambert from architect and design practice AOC to explore the process and impact of placing craft at the heart of architecture.
 
14:30
The Crafted Interior: The Handmade Home
Interior Designer Fiona Barrett-Campbell, architect Spencer Fung and Flow Gallery Director Yvonna Demczynska discuss the power of craft within our homes chaired by Susie Rumbold, President of the British Institute of Interior Design.
 
16:00
Material Focus – Wood and Furniture
Explore wood with designer-maker Sebastian Cox, Gallery Director, Sarah Myerscough and Morten Larsen from Danish company Dinesen. Teleri Lloyd-Jones will lead our discussion about wood from the traditional to the future.
 
Sunday 5 February
11:30
Ceramics in Contemporary Art
Journalist Emma Crichton-Miller talks to Curators Sara Matson from Tate St Ives and Helen Turner from CASS Sculpture Foundation and ceramist, Clare Twomey about ceramists as artists - where craft becomes art.
 
14:30
The Rise of Craft on Television
Grant Gibson talks with William Hardie featured on Channel Four’s George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces and Shed of the Year competition about the impact these shows have on the maker generation.
 
16:00
Material Focus – Glass
Crafts Council’s Creative Director,  Annie Warburton,  in conversation with glass artists Shelley James and James Maskrey alongside former Master of the Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers and Woman in the City founder, Gwen Rhys.
 
Monday 6 February
11:30
Home and Abroad:  Stories of Diverse Career Journeys
Crafts Council’s Talent Development Manager, Caroline Jackman, talks with three Collect Open makers – Claire Curneen, Hugh Miller and Richard McVetis – to explore their diverse career journeys.
 
14:30
Craft at the Heart of Learning
Henry Ward, Freelands Foundation’s Head of Education, and Andrew Brewerton, Principal of Plymouth Art College, will be discussing their new film ‘Thinking Making’ – showing how making has been placed at the centre of the college’s ideology  - with Crafts Council’s Head of Learning and Talent Development, Nicky Dewar.
 
Admission to all events is included in the price of a ticket to Collect. Spaces are limited and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. All events timings and information correct at time of going to press.
 
A lively talks and events programme will inspire and encourage debate on contemporary craft with leading voices from the worlds of craft, design, architecture, fashion and art. Newby Teas, the official tea sponsor for Collect, will be providing a complimentary cup of fine tea for all talk attendees to enjoy.
 
Benefit Auction
This year Collect is proud support the Crafts Council’s Benefit Auction to raise funds to help build a new home for craft in London.  A flexible and diverse space it will showcase new makers and new making to new audiences.  
 
The auction will include works kindly donated  by artists Grayson Perry,  Edmund de Waal, Clare Twomey, and Tord Boontje, and a recent Joseph Harrington commission supported by The Glenlivet.
The benefit auction is powered by Collect’s official online partner Artsy who are providing a comprehensive online guide to works and exhibitors and aims to raise over £40,000.
Bidding launches at 3pm on Wednesday 25 January will remain open until the end of the fair. Register to bid now at Artsy.net/collect-auction or download the Artsy app. All artworks
The benefit auction is powered by Collect’s official online partner Artsy who are providing a comprehensive online guide to works and exhibitors and aims to raise over £40,000.
Bidding launches at 3pm on Wednesday 25 January will remain open until the end of the fair. Register to bid now at Artsy.net/collect-auction or download the Artsy app. All artworks will be on display at Collect.
 

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Saatchi Gallery
Duke Of York's HQ, King's Rd, Chelsea, London SW3 4RY, UK
+44 20 7811 3070
http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk