Crafts Research Group

The Crafts Research Group is focused on the production and dissemination of high quality research in the contemporary crafts at Manchester School of Art. The group promotes the development of research activity in the history, theory and practice of craft, encourages collaboration, and supports a growing practice–as–research culture within the discipline.

Acting as a focus of creative production, constructive exchange and critical reflection, the Crafts Research Group encourages and supports the activities of researchers, makers and theorists across a wide range of contemporary making practices. Through projects such as 'Pairings', the group actively promotes interaction between subject areas (from both inside and outside of recognized craft boundaries) and between scholarship and studio practice.

Research activity within the group is focused on enquiry into the historical, cultural, social and economic significance of the hand-made and the archived object, the sustainability of crafts practice, and the critical dialogue between contemporary digital technology and traditional analog processes. Creative collaboration between individuals, HE institutions and with external and international project partners is central to the group's philosophy. The group is committed to an engagement with crafts in a multi-cultural context.

The group comprises designated research staff, including research fellows in ceramics, textiles and digital crafts, research-active teaching staff (drawn primarily, though not exclusively, from the Department of Design) and allied MIRIAD research students. Group members' research outputs cover a broad spectrum, from the production of individual artefacts and exhibitions to curatorship, critical writing and the publication of books and journal articles.

Research Areas

The group has recognized strengths in the material areas of ceramics (REF 2014) and textiles, and an established and growing engagement with contemporary digital processes in these and other areas.

Particular areas of research interest include:

• Embodiment; materiality and memory.
• The past in dialogue with the present.
• Collections, archives and their cultural value.
• Sustainable and cross-cultural crafts practices.
• Art and war/Craft and conflict.
• Social and public engagement.
• Digital practice as a making tool.
• Hybrid analog/digital practice.
• Visual narrative/lyricality/storytelling.

Recent Projects

Members

• Professor
  Stephen Dixon
  Research Group Leader
  —
  
• Kirsteen Aubrey
  Education Lead: Design Department
  —
  
• Sharon Blakey
  Senior Lecturer,
  Dept of Design
  —
  
• Stephanie Boydell
  Special Collections
  —
  
• John Davis
  Visual Resources Manager
  —
  
• David Grimshaw
  Programme Leader MA/MSc/MFA Product Design & MA/MSc/MFA Craft
  —
  
• Dr Nigel Hurlstone
  Senior Lecturer,
  Dept of Design
  —
  
• Hazel Jones
  Senior Lecturer,
  Dept of Art and Performance
  —
  
• Rachel Kelly
  Pathway Leader MA/MFA Fashion and Textile Routes
  —
  
• Professor
  Alice Kettle
  Professor of Textile Arts
  —
  
• Johnny Magee
  Academic Lead for Recruitment and Admissions, Arts & Humanities
  —
  
• Jane McKeating
  Associate Head, Department of Design
  —
  
• Lesley Mitchison
  Senior Lecturer,
  Dept of Design
  —
  
• Sally Morfill
  Senior Lecturer,
  Dept of Design
  —
  
• Dr CJ O'Neill
  Senior Lecturer, BA (Hons) Three Dimensional Design
  Course Leader BA (Hons) Product Design and Craft
  —
  
• Dr Lynn Setterington
  Senior Lecturer,
  Dept of Design
  —
  
• John Martin Walsh
  Senior Lecturer,
  Dept of Design
  —
  
• Alison Welsh
  Head of Department, Apparel (Hollings)
  —
  

Exhibitions & Publications

Exhibitions

Kettle, AM., 2020. Slipware, Crafts Study Centre, Farnham.

Superslowway, 2019. British Textile Biennal, Gawthorpe Hall, Padiham, Lancs, 3/10/2019 - 3/11/2019.

Morfill, S., Giles, S., 2019. Found Gestures (Chicago), Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, 14/4/2019 - 11/5/2019.

Morfill, S., Giles, S., 2019. Found Gestures (London), Five Years, London.

Walsh, J., 2019. The Secret History of Magazine Design: Cover Version, Science and Industry Museum, Manchester, 11/10/2019.

Aubrey, K., 2019. Undisciplinarity, Teaching and Learning in Action, 1/2019.

Kettle, AM., 2018. Alice Kettle: Thread Bearing Witness, The Whitworth, Manchester UK, 1/9/2018 - 24/4/2019.

Grimshaw, D., 2018. Crafting the Digital : an investigation into material and process led digital making, Craft Study Centre, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, 13/11/2018 - 15/12/2018.

Kettle, A., 2018. Odyssey, Southampton City Art Gallery, 6/10/2018 - 9/3/2019.

Kettle, A., 2018. Present Day - Supporting Living Artists, Candida Stevens Gallery, 10/11/2018 - 22/12/2018.

Artefacts

Kelly, R., 2020. 'A Learning Tool Kit for Sustainable Textile Practice.'.

Ian, S., Prof Richard, VN., Aubrey, K., 2020. 'Sensing the coast: exploring permanence, physicality and perspective', Atelier d'arts Film Fest (European Film Festival for Fine Crafts) and Real to Reel, the UK Film Festival of Crafts,.

Morfill, S., Giles, S., 2019. 'Found Gestures', Hyde Park Art Centre, Chicago, US, and Five Years, London, UK.

Kettle, A., 2019. 'Stitch A Tree, Karachi', Alliance Francaise de Karachi, Pakistan.

Grimshaw, D., 2018. 'Digital Generation of CNC Router Surface Patterns'.

McKeating, J., 2018. 'Nine Days a Week', MAC Birmingham.

Kettle, A., 2018. 'The 11th China Embroidery Culture and Arts Festival', Hanshan Art Museum, Hangzhou, China.

Book Chapters

Ravetz, A., Kettle, A., Felcey, H., 2019. 'In the Bee Hive: Valuing Craft in the Creative Industries'. In Artistic Research in Performance through Collaboration, Palgrave.

Kelly, R., Stephens, M., 2019. 'The Digitization of Cordillera Weaving: Designing a New Oral Tradition. Anthropological Analysis, Mathematical Symmetry and Technical Characterization of Cordillera Textiles'. In The Digitization of Cordillera Weaving: Designing a New Oral Tradition. Anthropological Analysis, Mathematical Symmetry and Technical Characterization of Cordillera Textiles., pp. 143-160.

Media

Carpenter, A., Illingworth, S., 2019. 'Testing The Field'.

Journal Articles

Dixon, S., 2019. 'Ceramics, narrative and commemoration', Craft Research, 10 (1), pp. 121-131.

Non-Peer Reviewed Articles

Kettle, A., 2019. 'Anni Albers', The Journal of Modern Craft, 12 (1), pp. 67-71.

Conference Papers

Kelly, R., Stephens, M., 2019. 'The Digitization of Cordillera Weaving: Designing a New Oral Tradition', IASDR 2019, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2/9/2019 - 5/9/2019.

Kelly, R., 2019. 'The Voices of the Cordillera- Digitising an Oral Tradition.', Design for Change Symposium, Design Museum, London, 11/12/2019 - 12/12/2019.

Kettle, A., 2018. 'In the Margins, Materialising Stories', 9/7/2018 - 9/7/2018.

Harper, P., Kettle, A., 2018. 'Making leaders/curating maker cultures', The Poetics of Leadership, Crossfields Institute, 7/9/2018 - 8/9/2018.

Dixon, S., Welsh, A., 2018. 'Refuge: Ropner's Ghost Ship: engaging with contemporary issues in the site-specific context of the museum', Manchester School of Art. Manchester Metropolitan University, 12/4/2018 - 13/4/2018.

Kelly, RMC., Carpenter, A., Illingworth, S., Hall, A., 2018. 'Testing The Field: Transdisciplinary Learning in an Unfamiliar Environment', HEA STEM Conference 2018: Creativity in Teaching, Learning and Student Engagement, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, 31/1/2018 - 1/2/2018.

Other Outputs

Morfill, S., Giles, S., Moskalewicz, M., Dickinson, B., 2019. 'Found Gestures: Susan Giles & Sally Morfill'.

Kettle, A., 2019. 'Horizontal Crossings'.

Millar, L., Kettle, A., 2018. 'The Erotic Cloth', Kettle, AM., Millar, L..