7th September – 5th October 2024

The Collections exhibition assembles students’ creative responses to the open-ended question:

What is a collection?

Join us for a showcase of art and design from students at Castle School in Thornbury, Bristol School of Art (SGS College), Cardiff School of Art & Design and UWE School of Architecture and Environment.

This question is at the heart of the Stradling Collection’s current educational outreach project. Directed by the trustee responsible for education, David Beech, the project works in conjunction with local schools and colleges to empower students and enrich the art curriculum. Unconstrained by either medium or form, the exhibition is wide in scope, spanning graphics and photography, ceramics, jewellery, and furniture.

Photo: work by Deirdre Szpera at the Bristol School of Art

Work by Deirdre Szpera at the Bristol School of Art

The Collections project, inspired by Ken Stradling’s eclectic personal collection of 20th and 21st-century objects, invites students to create their own unique collections. The project’s versatility and open-endedness accommodates the varied needs of participating schools and colleges. It functions both on-site at Stradling collection and off-site, and has the flexibility to accommodate different locations, class sizes, and time and travel constraints. This adaptability is key to the project’s accessibility, enabling a greater diversity of responses.

This project expands the notion of a collection. By understanding it as an open-ended concept, as a series of objects with some form of inter-relation, the students can respond and express themselves according to their unique standpoint. In Ken’s case, his collection is unified through the objects’ connection to design. Closer inspection reveals a maze of internal networks between the objects. They are connected in different ways – through colour, time period, size, texture, motifs and even associated mood, such as humour. Between this idea of seeking initially unseen connections between objects and the ethos that ‘every artist is a collector of some sort’, the project hopes to highlight the way collections can be realised in the most unlikely of places.

Tasked with discovering and bringing in examples of collections, the students offered a range of material from mushroom merchandise to grandparents’ nick-nacks through which to discuss the idea of collections. One keen student brought in a particularly delightful collection of found objects from his walks, including a piece of sheep fleece, buttons, and a broken pendant.

The students’ collections provoked exciting conversations about how collections can grow through a myriad of ways: whether organically, intentionally, through habit or pure chance. Their construction can also be deeply intertwined with self identity. What’s more, with the supplementary aid of art books, the students could relate their appetites for objects to fulfil their collections to the historical phenomena of Wunderkammers or contemporaneously to Hans-Peter Feldmann‘s habit of amassing cultural artefacts, placing them in a wider web of collecting enthusiasts.

Alongside this engagement with personal and historical collections, students’ gained the added experience of handling the objects. In accordance with Ken’s approach to learning, this haptic pedagogy revealed the way perceptions of objects can change through physical touch. For example, one might notice the unbelievably light weight quality of a chair due to the particularity of its material constitution. Confidence in object handling is also a critical employment skill in the arts industry which students were able to nourish through this project.

The attainment of desirable employment skills was central to this project. Through this project, we fostered essential employability skills among students such as critical thinking, the reflection upon and communication of ideas, as well as other skills outlined by Business West 2023. The students developed these skills throughout the project from the preliminary stages in which they exchanged ideas, through to the self-management necessary to present the final projects. Like our other educational outreach schemes, the Collections project works with Ken’s collection to spark curiosity and instil confidence in the artists of tomorrow. Alongside its endless display possibilities, Ken’s collection also offers countless opportunities to engage with students – to hear, see, and experience their talents and expressions.

Logo: Bristol City Council

With the kind support of Bristol City Council Originators’ Fund

OPENING HOURS

  • Wednesdays: 13:00-16:00hrs (Wednesdays only – please ring the bell and we will welcome you in)
  • Fridays: 13:00-16:00hrs
  • Saturdays: 11:30-16:30hrs