King’s Cross may have transformed into a design destination for this year’s London Design Festival, but there’s plenty of College graduates and staff exhibiting beyond the local area across the city.
First up, Countercurrent at Arthur Beale – London’s last remaining yacht chandler – is host to work by the contemporary jewellers and artists on the staff of BA Jewellery Design. Appropriately, considering the location, the exhibitors (including Caroline Broadhead, Naomi Filmer, Max Warren and Silvia Weidenbach among others) have taken ropes and sailing tackle as their inspiration, as the organisers explain:
“Think of the skipping rope, look for strings of pearls, entwining bracelets and necklaces, the heft and slump of hawsers and cables looped over and around the body. Just as inspiring is the transformative potential of chandlery objects – linking shackles, the smooth movement of transferring weight around a pulley. These are just preliminary indications of what promises to emerge from this creative and unusual confrontation, which is certain to produce one of the more unusual, interesting and varied design features of the festival.”
Rope of Pearls, Lin Cheung
If you’re heading any of the big shows you’re sure to find some familiar CSM faces. At Decorex in Syon Park make sure you stop by Corinne Julius’s Future Heritage showing work by CSM alumni Tamsin van Essen and Mark Laban, while over east at the London Design Fair you’ll find BA Ceramic Design graduates in the shape of Sevak Zagarian and Reiko Kaneko.
Studio Glaze, Reiko Kaneko
One particular project that caught our eye is Morag Myerscough (of BA Graphic Design) and Luke Morgan’s interactive Sign Machine, it sounds particularly intriguing described as “a kinetic swing installation…[that] juxtaposes calm and chaos”. And finally, if it’s conversation you’re after, then the Global Design Forum promises a programme of discussion including CSM alumni Jonathan Barnbrook and Fredriksson Stallard.
Walking shoes and map at the ready!
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