Creative Twinning’s 5th trip to Karlsruhe

 We're off to Eunique again! Here's a reminder about what we're up to...

Each year in late spring Nottingham’s twin city, Karlsruhe, hosts the prestigious Applied Arts Fair Eunique. Creative Twinning’s Jayne Childs (J.C. Middlebrook) and Debbie Bryan return for their 5th visit, this year accompanied by Design Factory members Phiona Richards and Hayley Beckley. The groups hope to wow Eunique’s international visitors with their British take on jewellery, textiles and accessories.

Jayne said ‘We love exhibiting at Eunique and were delighted to be selected again. The standard of work at the show is quite outstanding and it’s such an inspiration to be surrounded by such gifted designers. The range of talent on show is a real eye opener and we hope that Phiona and Hayley will get as much out of the visit as we do. We are made so welcome by the local creative community and look forward to meeting up with and exchanging ideas with our ‘Creative Twins’ in Karlsruhe’

More reading at:
Creative Twinning www.creativetwinning.com 
Eunique www.eunique.eu
Debbie Bryan www.debbiebryan.co.uk
J.C. Middlebrook www.jcmiddlebrook.co.uk
Hayley Beckley www.hayleybeckley.com
Phiona Richards www.rarenotions.co.uk

With hearty thanks to our sponsors One Nottingham and Design Factory!

In her own words - Renate Schweizer

What makes you an ‘eco-designer’?
I am working and using recycling material as basic- material of my art since my childhood. As an
artist I am taking responsibility in using economical and recycling material for I want to take care
for the health of earth, of the nature, of life in its whole.
Studying arts in India and United states in the early eighties I found the awareness of recycling
material as basic-material for art in the childrem-museum of fine arts in Boston. There for example
people could buy cleaned old cups from yoghurts or bottles to create puppets and masks in
workshop with children. I was very amused about this, that people gave money for the cleaned
yoghurt-cups in the museum but didn't clean their yoghurt-cups at home... this would have been a
different worth-thing in their minds.
2004 + 2005 I have been artist in residence in romania 2005/6 I have been artist in residence in
New Delhi, India. There I started to dry and collect the teabags after drinking my tea. Back in
Germany I continued collecting the old teabags, and created a Kimono made of 600 teabagpapers
for my art-project „Come to dinner – evention to all nations and religions“ exhibition in Karlsruhe:



2007 I created a dress with teabag-papers from red tea

2009 I created the 1st Karlsruher Teebollenhut

Tell us about any obstacles you face and any commercial successes you've had
Until now I didn't really do the cloths commercial, just create them for my art-project „Come to
dinner – invention to all nations and religions“ because for dinner it's a must to wear special
clothes.
For future I dream of creating more individual and crazy hats for Ascot and get the recomend of Charles Barnet and sell it for the happening in Berkshire.

Tell us about your 'customers'
My customers are visitors of my exhibitions and they buy the hats, because they can used it in real in
summer. Also I give workshops in creating your own individual sun-hat with old teabagpapers.

Renate is a member of GEDOK Karlsruhe and International Association of Paper Artists and PaperMakers (iapma)

Creative Twinning 2012

We're in the midst of last minute preparation for Creative Twinning's visit to Eunique Applied Arts Fair in Nottingham's twin city of Karlsruhe. The original Creative twinning designers Debbie Bryan, Hannah Lobley and Jayne Childs will accompanied by 7 designers from across the East Midlands. You can find out more about the designers showing at Eunique here.

We'll also have representatives from two of our supporting partners Design Factory and South Nottingham College. Alongside the fair we'll be busy making links with creative organisations from the Karlsruhe area in preparation for the Creative Twinning showcase we are already planning for October 2012.

We took time out yesterday to take part in some German Language and Cultural Awareness training from the fantastic Jo Small at Optima Training. Our supporting partner Future Factory at NTU hosted us for the day as we prepared our language skills for the trip!

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 Twinning, Creative Winning

Last week's Creative Twinning events went off without a hitch (or at least none that you could see!) and we thank our partners for their help and support in making it all happen.

Our Karlsruhe guests Nora, Philine, Brigitte and Angelika arrived safely in Nottingham on Tuesday and we kicked off by attending a screening of 'Made in Dagenham' (written by Nottingham's own Billy Ivory) at the Nottingham Girls High School. The screening was hosted by Women in Nottingham, who made our guest very welcome and plied them with nibbles!

Billy Ivory introducing Made in Dagenham

Wednesday was a busy day for all, with Debbie, Philine and Angelika starting the day as guests of Mark Dennison on BBC Radio Nottingham, talking about Creative Twinning and the cultural links we are starting to form.

The first formal event was a forum, or panel discussion held in the Paul Smith Suite at the Broadway. we had over 50 attendees and the audience really engaged with all the designers. No awkward moments where noone wanted to ask a question. What was lovely was that the first and last questions in the session were directed at the audience by panel members! Thanks to Sarah McNicol from Antenna for her lively and informed chairing of the discussion.

Waiting for the forum to start

Then we were off to Designer Forum, where we had more nibbles and refreshments. A slightly hairy moment for a couple of the German designers who took a left in stead of a right on their way to Designer Forum and ended up ringing Jayne from outside the Victoria Centre, admitting 'We are lost!'.  We really enjoyed an opportunity to network and have a look round the DF facitlies including the truly amazing trend books.

Nina welcomes the guests for networking at Designer Forum

One very quick change for us designers and it was back to the Lace Market Gallery where the Creative Twinning collections looked lovely in that unique space. Many attendees stayed to round the day off with wine and nibbles and took the chance to talk more to the designers and other guests. Photos were taken by Affari magazine and are available to view here. By the time we said goodnight to the last guest we were pretty bushed but still managed to go for something to eat at Edin's on the way home.

L-R Debbie Bryan, Nora Rochel, Brigitte Adolph, Angelika Schmidt, Hannah Lobley, Jayne Childs, Philine Kempf

Thursday was our designer's last day in Nottingham and they used it well, Brigitte visited a lace manufacturer and came away loaded down with samples, whilst Philine and Angelika went on a whistle-stop tour of Nottingham Castle. Nora headed off to New York (what a jet-setter!) at midday, so we said goodbye to her mid morning as we went off to attend a lecture at Nottingham Trent University by Eco Fashion author Sass Brown.Thank you to Future Factory for organising that!

Finally we all had the pleasure of a look into NTU's Lace Archive, for which we must thank Amanda Briggs-Goode. Amanda is in charge of this amazing collection of lace and lace industry and was very tolerant of our oohs and aahs as she revealed yet another layer of Nottingham's amazing design history to us.

Angelika and I nipped off to the New Art Exchange where we were greeted by CEO Skinder Hundal and team, and treated to a personal tour of the new Leo Asemota exhibition.

One last meal together and it was goodbyes all round as our guests had to catch a taxi to the airport at (whisper it) 4am! I do hope they have recovered and have finally got back into the real world since thier visit. It has taken me this long to come down from the ceiling and evaluate all the opportunities that are coming Nottingham's way as a result of this twinning week.


Thanks again to our partners, to Debbie and Hannah for being good sports and to all of you who came to the events.

Finally don't forget you can catch the showcase at the Lace Market Gallery, 25 Stoney St Nottingham until 27th October. Please do leave your comments if you go, just like these! 

See you soon, Jayne x

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 - Future Factory

The Creative Twinning team have been supported by Future Factory at Nottingham Trent University (NTU). Lynn Oxborrow, Angela Scott and all the FF team have been so encouraging and really helped us to focus on  delivering the best Creative Twinning events that we can.

Future Factory helps small and medium sized companies from across the East Midlands access the resources and expertise held within NTU. Their focus is on building sustainability, so the Creative Twinning showcase gave us the perfect opportunity to join forces with them to promote and explore eco-design in the UK and abroad. Future Factory is supported by the European Regional Development Fund. For more information visit http://www.ntu.ac.uk/future_factory

Find out more about our Eco-Showcase and register to attend any of the Creative Twinning events by clicking here www.creativetwinning.eventbrite.com

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!