Rural crafts Take ten
A film-based exhibition looking at ten individual craftspeople working in the countryside today
11 March to 22 June 2008
For more than 50 years MERL has been recording and collecting rural crafts. In a recent update, the Museum has been making films of ten craftspeople to relate its collections to the contemporary countryside. This exhibition is about the project and about rural craftsmanship today...
The exhibition marks the culmination of the Rural Crafts Today project, which has been about connecting the Museum's craft collections with the people, skills and places associated with countryside crafts today. The project was grant aided by the Designation Challenge Fund, part of the government's ‘Renaissance - museums for changing lives' initiative.
During 2006-7, Roy Brigden, Keeper of MERL talked to ten very different craftspeople, from different parts of the country, to discover more about the present and future prospects for rural craftsmanship in the twenty-first century. The films show craftspeople, such as the blacksmith, horse collar maker and potter, carrying out their work, bringing to life many of the objects on display in the Museum.
Roy Brigden says, "Rural crafts are a central focus of the MERL collections. Over the last century, the demise of rural crafts has been frequently forecast. And yet they remain, some in better shape than others, to provide a counterpoint to the conventions of modern living.
‘The most satisfying aspect of the project has been making connections between historic tools and products in our collections and the craftspeople of today's countryside. Some things have changed, some haven't. But what always shines through are the people themselves and the way their skills and lifestyle relate to the environment around them".
One of the craftspeople featured is weaver, Mary Kinipple, from Streatley in the heart of rural Berkshire, yet surprisingly close to Reading, Mary practises one of the most ancient of crafts, using wool from her own sheep and dyes that she produces from plants in her garden.
Mary says, "I agreed to take part in the series as I felt it an honour to be asked and more importantly I believe that the wider public need to be made aware of processes in the production of handmade articles. Once upon a time all our textiles were made this way!"
"I hope the exhibition will make people think about the long history of all the crafts filmed and stir an interest in them so much so that people would like to have a go themselves."
The project is the Museum's latest contribution to a long standing interest in rural crafts that encompasses archive material from the Rural Industries Bureau dating back to the 1920s, records of earlier museum fieldwork programmes from the 1950s, and former director Professor Ted Collins' 2004 report for the Countryside Agency Crafts in the English Countryside Towards a Future.
Visitors will be able to watch short versions of the films and see related objects from the MERL collections.
Opening times are Tuesday to Friday 9am to 5pm and 2 to 4.30pm at weekends.
Find out more about the project
You can hear Roy Brigden talk about the project and how the films were made, at a seminar at the Museum, at 4.30pm on March 11th. Please register if you wish to attend. Call 0118 378 8660 or email merlevents@reading.ac.uk
06.05.08
