The Crafts Council launches the national tour of Block Party: Contemporary craft inspired by the art of the tailor, a new exhibition exploring the creative possibilities of pattern cutting. The exhibition begins its tour at Smiths Row in Bury St Edmunds from 14 January to 10 March 2012, before travelling around the UK.
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 comes at a time of renewed interest in the bespoke and focuses on three themes: Storytelling, Embracing the Future, and Motif and Manipulation.
