The artists from the Blackwater Polytechnic will be showing at Theodore:Art as part of Exchange Rates: the Bushwick Expo. This is the first collaboration between existing artist-run and emerging galleries in Bushwick and Sluice, the London-based art initiative for artist-run projects from across the UK and Europe. Projects from Sluice’s network of UK and European galleries will share space with existing Bushwick spaces to forge links and find common ground across a vast geographical sweep.

Exchange Rates invites representatives from kindred art communities to be
part of Bushwick’s development. With a common focus on public engagement, artistic collaboration and the transferral of ideas, Exchange Rates will engender creative transaction between galleries, artists, curators and members of the public. There will be 52 galleries and projects participating from 19 different cities around the world. The expo will include several panel discussions, performance events and Norte Maar’s Beat Nite, a late night gallery tour and after-party on Friday.

Come to Exchange Rates for a creative breath of fresh air.

It is an exposition, to wit. Not a fair.

Exchange Rates: the Bushwick Expo is organised by Sluice_, Theodore:Art and Centotto.

Open from Thursday 23 – Sunday 26 October, 12 – 6pm daily
Launch party Friday 24 October 6 – 10pm
Entrance free

Blackwater Polytechnic will be showing at Theodore:Art, 56 Bogart St, Ground Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11206

Blackwater Polytechnic artists: Ben Coode-Adams, Freddie Robins, Simon Emery (The Paintbox), Sara Impey, Justin Knopp (Typoretum) and Paula Kane.

Interview with Ben Coode-Adams about the work of the Blackwater Polytechnic in the online publication Hyperallergic – An English Shire Arrives in Bushwick for Exchange Rates

sluice.info
blackwaterpolytechnic.com
theodoreart.com

To celebrate the 250th issue of Crafts, the magazine asked a group of makers, writers, gallery owners and collectors to nominate a moment that changed the field of making.

The American Craft Museum changes its name (2002)
For me an important moment is the moment that craft became a dirty word: the other c-word! In America the evidence for this is tangible; the changing of the name of the American Craft Museum in New York to the Museum of Arts & Design in 2002 (mind you, I love the acronym MAD). And in 2003 the dropping of the word ‘craft’ from California College of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco, making it simply the California College of the Arts. Maybe the seminal moment was in 2005 when Lacey Jane Roberts (a grad student from CCA) knitted the words ‘& Crafts’ in bright orange yarn and installed them in their former place at the end of the ‘California College of Arts’ sign, so that it read ‘California College of Arts & Crafts’ again.
Freddie Robins, artist

to read PDF of whole article

Two groups of BA Textiles students from Vilnius Academy of Arts were asked to make animated films of Freddie Robins’ knitted works, which were installed at Artifex Gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania from 12 – 27 September 2014.

Film by Katazina Jancevic, Marija Svedaite and Raminta Berzanskyte
Film by Zymante Poskaite and Ramune Pogozelskaite

www.artextile.lt
www.vda.lt

Blackwater Polytechnic was established by Ben Coode-Adams and Freddie Robins four years ago as an informal educational establishment to bridge the gap between aesthetic quality, design and practical making in the construction industry. Blackwater Polytechnic has subsequently broadened it’s activities to promote Essex and Essex creative people not because they need promoting but because they are really good – both the people and the county. The Blackwater Polytechnic is housed in a magnificent 16th Century timber framed barn on a working farm, featured on Grand Designs. The restoration has been multi-award winning in recognition of its many innovative features from the mesh roof to re-use of concrete silos. It’s really neat.

Exhibiting work by: Ben Coode-Adams, Freddie Robins, Simon Emery (The Paintbox), Leigh Cameron, Sara Impey, Justin Knopp (Typoretum) and Paula Kane

Blackwater Polytechnic, Feering Bury Farm Barn, Coggeshall Road, Feering, Colchester, Essex CO5 9RB
07803 968666
blackwaterpoly@gmail.com

Open from 11.00am – 6.00pm on Sunday 21 and Sunday 28 September, also by appointment

www.colchesteropenstudios.com
www.blackwaterpolytechnic.com

thinking/ranting/making/struggling/musing

Freddie Robins’ text, The Perfect, is now featured on Make Believe. Make Believe is an independent Irish and international online publication of explorative writing about craft. Its aim is to provide a platform for the best and most innovative craft writing and, by doing so, to encourage new work. Access is free and content is updated monthly with work by emerging and established writers. Edited by Eleanor Flegg and Jessica Hemmings.

to debate
to review and analyse
to encourage
and to inspire

www.makebelieve.ie