Creative Twins from Karlsruhe arriving soon!

Our Creative Twins from Karlsruhe are arriving at the beginning of next week. We are so pleased to be able to welcome them!

They are:
Juli Foos - 'One man's trash is another man's treasure' - Find out more on Juli's website

Weibke Goos -a jeweller creating a green alternative to conventional jewellery - http://www.goos-jewellery.com/

(photo: Petra Jaschke)

Renate Schweizer describes herself as an 'intermodal artist'. She is bringing recycled fashion this time
She has a YouTube channel showing her work here

Come and meet Juli, Weibke and Renate at Fantastic Futures 5-7pm at Designer Forum and  Designer's Resolutions 6 7- Midnight at Antenna on Tuesday 23rd October, and Inspire and Unite 5-8pm at Nottingham Contemporary on Friday 26th October

Summer update

We are working behind the scenes on the Creative Twinning Showcase to be held at Nottingham Contemporary on 26th October 2012. Applications are sought from Karlsruhe designers who would like to visit Nottingham from 24th to 27th October. Please see the 'Opportunities' page or click here for more information on how to apply.

Creative Twinning next stage plans

We will be meeting with some of our supporting partners and designers this Friday to get acquainted and start planning our Creative Twinning trip to Karlsruhe in May. As you may know ten designers from across the East Midlands will be exhibiting at Eunique Applied Arts Fair in Karlsruhe. We hope to also offer partners from Design Factory and South Nottingham College the chance to meet up with their 'Creative Twins' from that region of Germany.

Then we are planning to invite some German designers to return to Nottingham in October 2012 for more exciting events and a design showcase. Later on this year we will be focussing on bringing on young designers so are working on plans with South Nottingham College to help mentor and encourage them, with the aim of involving the young people in the 2013 exchange.

We'll tweet some photos on Friday so don't forget to follow us @creativetwin

‘Creative Twins’ meet up in Munich

JC Middlebrook designer Jayne Childs has just returned to Nottingham from Munich where she visited her ‘Creative Twin’, jewellery designer Brigitte Adolph at the Inhorgenta international jewellery fair.

Brigitte's stand at Inhorgenta

Jayne met Brigitte in May 2011, when she exhibited at Eunique Applied Arts Fair in Karlsruhe. The trip was Creative Twinning’s first trip, and culminated in three German designers making a reciprocal visit to Nottingham in October 2011. Jayne and Brigitte were reacquainted during this visit and decided to start collaborating on some lace designs for jewellery.

JC Middlebrook lace in real silver!

Brigitte has developed a range of silver jewellery from Jayne’s lace designs and the show was the first opportunity for Jayne to see how the designs had worked in the precious metal.  The pair took some time during Jayne’s stay to work out some technical issues with the designs and plan new work for the coming months. Jayne is returning to Germany with Creative Twinning in May, alongside nine other Design Factory members for Eunique 2012. The pair hopes to have more work completed by then, alongside some special pieces to be incorporated directly into Jayne’s textiles.

About JC Middlebrook – Jayne Childs began making lace under the business name JC Middlebrook in September 2010. She is inspired by the history of machine made lace in her home city of Nottingham and uses original designs from the former factories as a starting point for her lace textiles.

More information about JC Middlebrook at www.jcmiddlebrook.co.uk and Brigitte Adolph’s lace jewellery can be seen here http://www.brigitte-adolph.de/en/spitzenschmuck.html 

About Inhorgenta - Inhorgenta is an internationally renowned industry forum offering the most comprehensive overview of current and future developments in the world of jewellery and watches. Inhorgenta covered a total of 66,000 square meters of space, divided over six exhibition halls at Messe München International and around 30,000 trade visitors made their way around 1134 trade stands.  http://www.inhorgenta.com/en/portal

Creative Twinning 2012

We're so happy to be returning to Karlsruhe in May 2012. This year, we have partnered with Design Factory to offer 7 additional East Midlands designers the opportunity to showcase at Eunique Applied Arts fair.

The Creative Twinning/Design Factory group will include:

• Debbie Bryan - Knitted textiles and fashion accessories
• Paperwork by Hannah Lobley - Recycled paper products
• J C Middlebrook - Lace textiles
• Ashi Marwaha - Jewellery
• Catherine Carr Glass - Glass
• Gillian Lee Smith - Textiles
• Foto Ceramica - Ceramics
• Porcellana & Duomo - Ceramics
• Rachel Helen Designs  - Jewellery
• Suet Yi Ceramics - Ceramics

It will be so exciting to introduce these designers to this fantastic arts fair, and to Karlsruhe, where we received such a warm welcome last year. We'll have more news in the next few weeks, so watch  this space!

Counting down to Creative Twinning events

The Creative Twinning events this week are the culmination of months of planning. We hope you'll enjoy them and join us as we exchange new cultural sustainable ideas with our Creative twins from Karlsruhe.

There's still time to register for any of the events, including the Creative Twinning Forum where you can find out more, join the conversation and shape the future for Creative Twinning with your ideas and involvement.

Afterwards, network with other Creative Industry professional at Designer Forum. Find out more abut the fabulous facilities they host in the heart of our creative city. Click here to register for Creative Networking

Finally, join us at a private view of our Creative Twinning Eco Showcase at the Lace Market Gallery on Stoney Street in Nottingham's historic Lace Market. Register here

We're really looking forward to seeing you there! Jayne, Hannah and Debbie (the Creative Twinning team)

update: read about us in Affari Magazine

Creative Twinning Partner - Nick Rawle

Portrait photographer Nick Rawle is working on a series of images of East Midlands Designer Makers and offered to include images from his project in our eco-showcase. We asked him to tell us a little more about his project.

"These photographs are part of an ongoing documentary project on the craft skills and traditional makers of the East Midlands. The project came about as an attempt to find out what was left of the skills economy that made England the 'workshop of the world' in Victorian times, and to see if any of the skills and trades for which the region became famous were still in existence.

The textile mills, lace makers, bicycle manufacturers and leather workers which we associate with the various towns and cities of the region may no longer be mass manufacturers, but their unique skills remain and are flourishing again, and with them a sense of pride in the goods that they create, and the towns in which they are made.

The very modern twist to these traditional crafts is the notion of 'sustainability' and 'carbon footprint' two modern words for values and ideals that our Victorian forebears would have understood very well."

Visit Nick's website www.nickrphotography.com or Facebook page to see more of his work.

Sign up here for the Creative Twinning Eco-Showcase to see Nick's photographs in real life

Creative Twinning for Creative October

We're onto the next stage for Creative Twinning! Designers from Karlsruhe have been sending in applications and we have to thank Angelika Schmidt for her hard work in promoting and supporting us. Angelika works for Karlsruhe Culture Office in the Department of International Relations. She has acted as a point of contact for designers in Karlsruhe and will be joining us here in Nottingham in October for our eco-showcase.

Things are moving on at a fast pace, we are designing a programme to exchange ideas and experiences. The visiting designers will be involved in talks and other networking events during their stay in Nottingham. Future Factory at Nottingham Trent University have been a major partner in organising this.

We have also secured an exhibition space in Nottingham's historic Lace Market Gallery, thanks to New College Nottingham. Alongside our work there, we'll have images from portrait photographer Nick Rawle. More on Nick in a later post, but here's one of his images to keep you going.

So all in all, it's going to be a busy couple of months in the lead up to Creative Twinning's next showcase. We're so excited about the possibilities!

Stage two - Nottingham Twinning Showcase

Now that we've returned from Karlsruhe, we're busy planning the next stage of our project. As you'll remember, we three designers visited Nottingham's twin city of Karlsruhe in Germany at the end of May. The aim was to make links with designers there and begin a process which would end in us inviting three eco-designers to come and showcase in Nottingham during Creative October 2011.

Luckily for us, the Eunique team and local agencies were really helpful to us in making those links. The show catalogue helpfully noted where designers were from, so we were able to go to Karlsruhe designer's stand and chat to them about our ideas.

Since we have returned we have been working on the second stage of the plan, that of inviting applications from designers in Karlsruhe. NTU's Future Factory has agreed to host some events where the visiting designers will be asked to reflect on their experience of being an 'Eco-designer' in Germany. We'll also have a three week exhibition of work. Last Friday we met to firm up our plans and have a look round a potential showcase venue, NCN's gallery space on Stoney Street in Nottingham.

The next stage is to send the invitations to apply, and hopefully select the best three to join us for our showcase and talks programme. Those will be sent this week and we look forward to seeing what response we get.

In the press...

Our visit and attendance at Eunique in Karlsruhe was featured in the Nottingham Evening Post on 28th May!

This is Nottingham | Designers showcase work at German arts and crafts fair

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/Designers-showcase-work-German-arts-crafts-fair/story-12136269-detail/story.html