In brief | Latest news, moves and projects from across the sector
Silk ribbon weaving added to endangered crafts list
The Heritage Crafts Association (HCA), the national charity for traditional heritage crafts, has declared silk ribbon weaving a critically endangered craft. The skill is one of 17 crafts deemed to be at serious risk of no longer being practised in the UK. There are five silk ribbon weavers in the UK, two of whom are employed at Whitchurch Silk Mill, a working museum in Hampshire. Other critically endangered crafts are arrow smithing, chain and straw hat making.
The Red List of Endangered Crafts was created by the Heritage Crafts Association in 2017 to raise awareness about disappearing traditional skills in the UK. This is the first time the list has been updated the list since 2021. Since the publication of the 2021 edition, one craft, mouth-blown flat glass making, is known to have become extinct in the UK.
“The effect of the energy crisis, inflation, Covid-19 and Brexit has been tough on everyone, not least the craftspeople who possess our most fundamental craft skills,” says Mary Lewis, who led the research on behalf of the HCA.
“We know heritage craft skills operate like an ecosystem; losing one part can devastate other parts of the system. If we allow endangered crafts to disappear, we seriously diminish the opportunities for future generations to create their own sustainable and fulfilling livelihoods and deal with future challenges.”
In the last few years, the recently retired senior weaver at Whitchurch Silk Mill has passed on her skills to two trainee weaver tacklers, Shannon Bye and Olivia Goldsmith, who are now employed at the Mill full-time. However, the HCA says the heritage skills that ensure the continuation of the mill remain critically endangered.
Contemporary Collecting Network launches
A new subject specialist network dedicated to contemporary collecting has launched.
The network aims to recognise the increasing importance of contemporary collecting as a cross-disciplinary subject specialism. It will support professionals, researchers and students interested in the practice of contemporary collecting to share work and research in this field by providing a network for critical thinking, discussion and resource sharing. It aspires to become a space of learning and problem-solving, and a safe space to discuss challenges within this area.
The aims of the network are to:
- Deliver one seminar or workshop a year
- Support ad hoc, casual and informal networking and social conversation throughout the year
- Occasionally create publications
- Create a resource bank of literature, reports and case studies relevant to membership
- Maintain a jiscmail
- Work with other subject specialisms to consider the importance of contemporary collecting within them and further the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary collecting
- Assist in creating awareness about contemporary collecting to communities and non-specialist museum professionals.
Contact the network at contemporarycollectingnetwork@gmail.com.
Herbert art show breaks visitor record thanks to “Dippy effect”
A contemporary art exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry has become one of the most visited in the gallery’s history thanks to the “Dippy effect”.
Tens of thousands of visitors have flocked to see Divided Selves, which explores ideas of identity, community, nationhood and conflict, since Dippy, the life-size dinosaur replica, arrived at the gallery in February on long-term loan from the Natural History Museum.
The exhibition will enter its second phase this week with two new visual installations and a temporary exhibit in Coventry Cathedral due to be unveiled on 10 June. The exhibition, which will conclude on 24 September, features work from the British Council Collection and the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum’s collection – with its curator Hammad Nasar featuring revered artists from a range of backgrounds working across a host of mediums, including Turner Prize winners.
The Dippy display has been credited with encouraging the record footfall to the institution. “It’s really exciting,” said Nasar. “We have seen people of all ages visiting the gallery with one thing in mind and leaving having had a window into other worlds and perspectives.
“The breadth of communal and overlooked viewpoints that the exhibition covers is huge, but it is actually a very approachable experience that the casual viewer is clearly finding very rewarding.
“By coming to see Dippy, whatever their interest, discipline, or background, people are acting on their natural curiosity about a world that stretches far beyond themselves, and Divided Selves is an extension of that.”
British firm to lead Bayeux Tapestry Museum revamp
The architectural firm RSHP has been named the unanimous winner of a project management competition to lead on the redevelopment of the Bayeux Tapestry Museum in Bayeux, northern France. The British architect is now in negotiations with the City of Bayeux with a view to awarding the contract. The 1,000-year-old tapestry depicting the Norman conquest of England has been housed in its current location since 1983.
The aims of the redesign include optimising the conservation and presentation conditions of the Bayeux Tapestry, enriching the visitor experience while improving reception conditions, and overseeing the urban integration of the museum and its contemporary extension. The new museum is scheduled to open in 2027-2028.
RSHP has previously carried out large-scale architectural projects including the extension of the British Museum, the European Court of Human Rights and the Louvre Liévin Conservation Centre.
Coventry’s City Centre Cultural Gateway gains planning permission
Planning permission has been granted to transform Coventry’s former IKEA building into a collections centre and cultural hub. Known as the City Centre Cultural Gateway (CCCG), the building will be repurposed to provide a new home for nationally recognised collections and include a space for new research facilities. The Coventry City Council led project will be delivered in three phases.
Phase one will see part of the building being repurposed to become a collections centre of national significance where CV Life, Arts Council England, Arts Council Collection and the British Council will house their collections.
The works will start at the end of 2023 and the centre is forecast to open in 2025.
Chatham Historic Dockyard acquires Billy Childish paintings
Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust has acquired ten paintings by Billy Childish for its permanent collection. In 2011 Childish became artist-in-residence at the site, where he currently rents a studio.
Since 1977 Childish has released more than 150 independent LPs, published five novels and more than 45 collections of poetry, but his main job is painting. He has had solo exhibitions internationally including in New York, London, Seoul and Berlin and he was included in British Art Show 5.
The series of paintings acquired by the trust, named “rope pullers”, draws on the themes of maritime and the dockyard's history – no doubt inspired, in part, by Childish’s own experiences as a dockyard apprentice in 1976 and the fact his studio is located in the historic Ropery, which dates to 1780 and still makes rope today.
The paintings can be viewed on the trust’s Collections Online portal.