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Issued:07/11/12
The Crafts Council exhibition Block Party: Contemporary Craft Inspired By The Art Of The Tailor, exploring the creative possibilities of pattern cutting, opens at Sheffield Hallam University's Sheffield Institute of Arts Gallery from Friday (9 November) to Sunday 16 December.
Block Party explores the alchemy of the centuries-old skill of tailoring by presenting work by 15 UK and international artists who push pattern-cutting beyond the fashion garment. Artists include Yinka Shonibare MBE, Shelley Fox, Charlotte Hodes, Dai Rees and Hormazd Narilewalla.
Block Party has been curated by Lucy Orta, Professor of Art, Fashion and the Environment at London College of Fashion, and renowned visual artist whose own practice fuses fashion, art and architecture.
The artists Orta has selected take pattern-cutting as a starting point to produce sculpture, ceramics, textile, moving image and collage. Through experimentation the artists have found new ways to assemble pattern shapes, not to create garments but to manipulate shape to realise new outcomes. The exhibition focuses on three themes: Storytelling, Embracing the Future, and Motif and Manipulation.
In Storytelling artists use pattern-cutting as a means of expression. Turner Prize-nominated Yinka Shonibare MBE presents a child mannequin, dressed in a historically accurate Victorian outfit crafted from African fabric to reference culture, race and history.
Claudia Losi’s 24m whale made of woollen suit fabric was transported around the world to stimulate discussion and storytelling before being deconstructed and transformed into jackets in collaboration with fashion designer Antonio Marras.
In Embracing the Future existing pattern-cutting methods are manipulated and challenged through the use of innovative processes and technologies.
Click to view the images
Simon Thorogood’s patterns are created using digital programmes whilst Philip Delamore of the Fashion Digital Studio at London College of Fashion seeks to apply the latest developments in 3D digital design to the garment making process.
In Motif and Manipulation the beauty of the paper pattern block is the visual inspiration. Ceramist Charlotte Hodes directly incorporates these familiar shapes into her ceramics whilst Raw Edges re-appropriate the use of a pattern block by creating a flat paper pattern of a chair which is then filled with expandable foam to create the 3D ‘Tailored Wood’.
More information about Block Party can be found at www.blockparty.org.uk
Venue: Sheffield Hallam University's Sheffield Institute of Arts gallery, Cantor Building, Arundel Street, Sheffield.
Open: 10am to 5pm daily including weekends and until 8pm on Wednesday.
