NEW MSc Craft & Creative Business Degree Launched!

A new postgraduate degree at the University of Dundee - MSc Craft and Creative Business - will take its first students in September 2009.

This exciting new course is the only generic, multidisciplinary postgraduate crafts programme in the UK dedicated to developing and integrating contemporary craft practice and crafts business. It answers the sector’s need for craftspeople to hold specific business knowledge that enables them to become internationally established. This course addresses entrepreneurialism and business strategy for crafts practitioners.

It is a one-year full time programme taught by leading experts at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. Duncan of Jordanstone is one of the few art & design Colleges in the UK that is part of a world-class university “where researchers routinely push back the boundaries of knowledge and teachers inspire their charges”. (Sunday Times, 2008)

For more information, visit the course webpage.

V&A and Duncan of Jordanstone College student success

3rd Year textile design student, Kirsty Fenton has won the 'Hidden Histories, Untold Stories' quilt project organised by the major AHRC funded 'Past, Present and Future Craft Practice' research project and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The prize is an exciting and rare opportunity to make her quilt for inclusion within the V&A 2010 exhibition, in the thematic display 'Making a Living' where she will be exhibiting alongside international artists such as Grayson Perry, Viktor & Rolf and Tracey Emin. As lead judge and curator of the V&A 2010 exhibition, Sue Prichard said, 'Kirsty's work combines an uncomfortable truth regarding child labour but does so in a way which is thoughtful, evocative and also beautifully constructed and made'.

Principle design lecturer for the textile project, Josie Steed offered her congratulations to all the students taking part in the competition who responded to the brief with enthusiasm and intelligence.

'Quilts'
20 March - 4 July, 2010
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

For further information please visit: http://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/future_exhibs/Quilts/index.html

Little Stories

Interactive Jeweller, Sarah Kettley has been attached to the AHRC 'Past, Present and Future Craft Practice' project since January 2009 through the pilot Scottish Arts Council Crafts Development Bursary scheme. On Wednesday 1st April at Duncan of Jordanstone College in Dundee, she will reflect on her time in the Masters of Design studio with reference to the original aims of the residency, outlining the ‘Little Stories’, or strands of research, that she has been pursuing. Funding was awarded to support “a practice led investigation of craft through engagement with the emerging needs of critical and functional interaction design”, and the subsequent demonstration of craft as a discipline to other fields of creative practice.


The Little Stories that have emerged include Early Moves, the design of attachments for body worn sensor networks for pre school children in a project investigating rich motor control development, and Migration, starting points for a lo-tech formal design method for working with state change materials. In addition, the residency has provided a valuable space for reflection on the development of a new area of practice, and Sarah will take the opportunity here to pull out some of the commonalities in her work in fashion and textiles, jewellery and interaction design, to create new directions for research and creative outputs, and to create a positive narrative of an interdisciplinary and experimental practice.

Scottish Craft Bursary Opportunities

A fantastic bursary opportunity for craft practitioners supported by the Scottish Arts Council and Duncan of Jordanstone College, University of Dundee!

Following on a highly successful pilot study, up to three Craft funded placements at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD), each of 3 months duration, are being offered to creative practitioners to take place during the period 1st August – 11th December 2009. These are being offered through the Scottish Arts Council’s (SAC) Crafts Creative Development Awards which support individuals to create new work through awards of up to £10,000. The work created through the bursary scheme will be part of an exhibition at the 2010 Craft Festival. Successful awardees during the pilot study were Gillian Cooper (Textile Artist) and Sarah Kettley (Interactive Jeweller).

This is a rare opportunity for crafts practitioners to update their creative practice through having access to equipment, facilities and College research staff as appropriate. Applicants wishing to apply for one of the placements should do so by 20th April 2009, having previously discussed their proposal with relevant College staff.

For more information on this opportunity please see
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/design/craftbursaries2009.php or
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/funding/apply/individuals/crafts.aspx.

Enquiries may be directed to ppfcp@dundee.ac.uk.