Freddie Robins is one of the selectors invited to chose works from the Crafts Council Collection to create a ‘visual answer’ to the question – What does craft look like and mean to you? Alongside this selection curator Dr. Christine Checinska was asked to consider what was missing. Her selection of works by contemporary makers plays tribute to the founding ethos of the collection – to document innovative practice by emerging makers.

The final result is Maker’s Eye: Stories of Craft, an exhibition which features over 150 craft objects embodying multiple viewpoints on craft and its meaning.

As well as being a selector Freddie Robins has also been selected. She has two works from the Crafts Council Collection exhibited in Maker’s Eye – Hand of Good, Hand of God (1997) and Crafts Kills (2002).

Maker’s Eye: Stories of Craft runs from 7 July – 9 October 2021.

Crafts Council Gallery
44a Pentonville Road
Islington
London
N1 9BY

Open Wednesday – Saturday. Entrance free
For more information and to book tickets

Maker’s Eye: Works by Selectors
Crafts Council Gallery

(Freddie Robins, photographed with Allsorts by Judith Robson, Allerseelen by Hans Stofer and Match Pin by Gary Wright. 1 – 11 Floor Pad by Ann Sutton can be seen in the background (all held in the Crafts Council Collection), at her home. Photo: Jamie Stoker)

Freddie Robins’ work I has been purchased for the Government Art Collection through Art X-UK Acquisitions.

“Over the past year, the Government Art Collection has collaborated with contemporary art networks to collect new works by 45 visual artists from across the UK, celebrating and supporting the diversity of creativity across the Union.

In this difficult and unusual year, the Collection invited the networks for nine regions in England, and the networks in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, to nominate artists as part of a special project, Art X-UK. Our collection curators went on a virtual tour of artists’ studios from Penwith to Ballygally, to select works for the Collection to display in government buildings worldwide. Art X-UK, supported by the Advisory Committee on the Government Art Collection, was a unique way of responding to the impact of COVID-19 on the visual arts sector.

This project has enabled the Collection to support 45 artists, acquiring over 90 works, and spending £230,000 across the UK. As part of the nomination process, we asked each network to form a group and put forward the artists’ names, providing a statement on their selection process for transparency, including a list of the selectors. Asked to consider diverse representation of artists within each region, 24 of the artists are women, 2 identify as non-binary, 20 as minority ethnic, 6 as LGBTQ+, and 4 with disclosed disability.” For more information about the Government Art Collection

Freddie Robins will be presenting her work through Art at Home from Friday 27 – Sunday 29 August.

Art at Home in Lion House, 13 Sion Road, Twickenham TW1 3DR

To be Covid Safe please book a time to visit, hourly slots available, through eventbrite. Admission and booking is free.

Friday 27 August Exhibition Preview 6.00 – 8.00pm Book here
Saturday 28 August 10.00am – 6.00pm Book here
Sunday 29 August 10.00am – 6.00pm with Artist Talk @ 11.00am Book here

Art at Home presents a curated choice of affordable artworks for your home. Devised by Kath Wood (Kath & Company) and inspired by her lifelong passion to connect artists to new audiences, Art at Home is the culmination of more than 30 years of working with artists, galleries and museums across the UK.

Visit site here
For more information about Kath Wood and Kath & Company
instagram @kathandcompany

The Blackwater Polytechnic (Ben Coode-Adams, Freddie Robins, Sara Impey, Justin Knopp and Simon Emery – The Paintbox) are exhibiting a new collaborative work, Tree, in the Craftspace national touring exhibition We are Commoners: Creative Acts of Commoning.

The exhibition highlights acts of ‘commoning’ that are shaping the way communities are working together to share and steward commonly owned assets and resources. It also investigates craft as a form of commons through knowledge, materials, practice and heritage.

The exhibition also includes new work by artists: Amy Twigger Holroyd, Deirdre Nelson, Hefin Jones, Linda Brothwell, Jacky Oliver, Shane Waltener, Lise Bjørne Linnert with Gelawesh Waledkhani, Rachael Colley, Alinah Azadeh and Kate Hodgson.

Exhibition launches at:
Oriel Davies Gallery
The Park, Newtown,
Powys, Wales
SY16 2NZ

Exhibition runs from 24 March – 26 June 2021.
Open Tuesday – Sunday 11.00am – 5.00pm.
For more information about the exhibition at Oriel Davies Gallery

The exhibition then tours the UK until September 2022.
For more information about Craftspace national tour of We are Commoners
Crafting the Commons project blog

Laura Grace Simpkins writes a personal essay centred on Freddie Robins’ work Craft Kills (2002) for Decorating Dissidence, issue 13 Wearable Art.

Decorating Dissidence is an interdisciplinary project exploring the political, aesthetic & conceptual qualities of craft from modernism to the contemporary.

Read essay