MA Contemporary Crafts Show 2025

Name: Hereford College of Arts
Price range: $

Published

4th December 2024
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Join us to celebrate the final exhibition showcasing the work of MA Contemporary Crafts graduates from Hereford College of Arts.

Join us to celebrate the final exhibition showcasing the work of MA Contemporary Crafts graduates from Hereford College of Arts. This course focuses on advancing individual creative craft practices, extending critical thinking, and nurturing diverse ideas and approaches. The exhibition will feature ceramics, textiles, glass and forged metal, highlighting a blend of traditional and innovative materials and techniques. Four talented makers will showcase their work, representing the broad possibilities within an MA in Contemporary Craft.

The exhibition will take place from Friday 10th January - Saturday 18th January, 11Am - 4PM: Unit 32, 1 Gomond Street, Hereford.

Ali Robertson

‘From Deterioration to Acceptance: Material Metaphors in the Reframing of Progressive Adult-Onset Hearing Loss’ The aim of my project was to explore and evoke the personal feelings of loss associated with my adult-onset progressive hearing loss and demonstrate a reframing of these feelings in a more positive light. I have used fused glass and forged metal as material metaphors to conceptualize the subjective by means of the tangible and embodied, drawing on both Lakoff’s Theory of Metaphor and Frame Theory. The project is composed of two sections – Deterioration and Acceptance. Deterioration is demonstrated by a series of forged tuning forks of diminishing size (implying increasing frequency), housing fused glass of decreasing hue and clarity. I have taken Lakoff’s linguistic Frame Theory and applied it to a visual vocabulary using resonance patterns and the concept of ‘Sound as Vision’ to create a series of Acceptance Bowls. The process of self-reflection and transformative learning throughout this project has resulted in an invaluable reframing of thought and the crystallizing of new perspectives, not only of my deafness but in the wider sense of how I see the world.

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Ananda Hill

Ancient Threads in a Digital Wasteland Through my research project I explored and interrogated examples of ancient and historic folk embroidery to better understand their importance as a form of communication and language to influence my own contemporary narrative embroidery practice. Many embroideries in the historical record use patterns, images, iconography, and symbology that were intended to confer metaphysical protection on the people, places, and objects they dressed. Considering this stitched, communicative response to external stressors – be they magical, physical, environmental, or political – led to the design of a body of contemporary narrative embroidery that held the intention of sparking dialogue around the more socio-political threats faced in the modern world, and the tangible psychological benefits of engaging in a craft practice as an antidote – a way of creating our own protective magic, after all.

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Emma Horrocks

Sympoiesis I use my art practice to collaborate and create in sympoiesis with the natural world, producing outcomes that reflect my concerns about the changing climate. New Materialism has been the catalyst for this work, leading me to discover concepts that align with my worldview. By exploring principles of flat ontology, where matter has agency and everything is interconnected, I develop new approaches and working methods framed as research-assemblage ‘events’ to gather materials and source inspiration from my environment. This enriches and roots my work in both time and place. The resulting artwork, in the form of outcome-assemblages, is made of commonplace materials such as paper, thread, and natural matter. These materials create networks connected by stitches and are produced by working in collaboration with matter as a co-creator. The outcomes aim to engage audiences, evoke a sense of care and kinship toward nature and advocate for a harmonious, connected, and positive vision of the future.

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Mary Stephens

A Potter’s meditation on the living philosophy of Yoga. ‘Sa - Ta – Na - Ma’ - ‘birth, life, death, rebirth’ - ‘beginnings, existence, transformation, joy’ Sa-Ta-Na-Ma is a meditation on the cycles of life, a letting go of the old you to return to your true nature. My Master’s project is a joining of my two practices and paths: ceramics and yoga. I combine practice and philosophy, using clay and its material properties, process, forms and outcomes as embodied metaphors. In body one Individual Consciousness I represent the individual’s path of balance and returning to one’s true-self and express this through thrown and trimmed porcelain; trimming used as an embodied metaphor for the undoing and letting go of learnt behaviours and responses. In body two Our Consciousness I represent the harmony, balance and connection between individual and universal consciousness and energy. All things are connected and work in relation to each other; this is expressed through combining thrown and trimmed ceramic forms (pods and circle/curved forms) and finding their point of balance and connection so that they work in relationship, reliant on connection and interaction to maintain the balance.

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