Arts & Crafts Women is a free exhibition on display at the Engine Shed (part of Historic Environment Scotland) during the winter of 2019/20.

The Arts and Crafts movement celebrated a revival of traditional crafts ideals. This exhibition highlights the work of five female arts and crafts women. It sheds a light on the people who were not given the recognition they deserved during their careers.

Crafting the space

It only seemed right to collaborate with two great female Scottish exports for this project. I brought Kirsten Murray and Kat Summers on board to handle art direction and graphic design for this project. We approached the brief by embracing the same ideals which inspired the work on display.

The exhibition space at Engine Shed has a modern industrial feel to it. But that didn’t stop us from dressing the walls like an artists workshop. This involved the creation of bespoke fabric, printed at Center for Advanced Textiles (CAT) within the Glasgow School of Art (GSA).

We refitted display cases to become light boxes, bringing new light to historic artists portraits. Images were printed on to linen to bring a natural feel to the exhibition. The interpretation itself was printed locally and displayed on clip boards.

Edinburgh based photographer/film maker Rob McDougall spent a day at CAT filming the process of the fabric creation. This short video accompanied the exhibition.