Maker’s Eye: Stories of Craft is the first exhibition in the new Crafts Council Gallery. It celebrates the breadth, diversity and qualities of craft, and includes numerous craft objects made in the UK over the course of the last 50 years.

This exhibition was curated with 13 makers, putting their diverse views on craft and making at its centre. Each of the maker-selectors have work in the Crafts Council Collections. Together, they represent a cross-section of craft interests, disciplines, career stages and models of practice. We asked them to select up to 15 objects in response to the brief: “What does craft look like and mean to you?”.

In Summer 2020 we invited curator Dr Christine Checinska 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. We hope her additions will animate conversations about the value of collections, what history is documented, what stories are told, who they are for, and who decides what is in them.

After a year during which craft became ever more present in our lives and more of us turned to craft as a source of solace and activity during the pandemic, then this dazzling array of more than 150 craft objects and the multiple viewpoints on craft and its meaning, could not be more timely.

Selectors
Assemble (Amica Dall & Giles Smith)
Michael Brennand-Wood
Caroline Broadhead
Neil Brownsword
Dr Christine Checinska
John Grayson
Ineke Hans
Angela James
Michael Marriott
James Maskrey
Freddie Robins
Matt Smith
Esna Su
Simone ten Hompel