My Family and other objects
10 September – 8 October 2022
My Family and Other Objects is a project by our Learning Programme inspired by A Lifelong Passion for Design: Ken Stradling at 100, which tells the story of Ken Stradling’s life and times through 100 objects selected from the Stradling Collection.
Students from Castle School, Thornbury, The Bristol School of Art and Cardiff School for Art and Design were asked to select something(s) from their own possessions, which they think tells a story about themselves, or their family, culture or community. Using their chosen object as inspiration they have made work that tell the students’ own stories using any medium or material they felt to be most appropriate.
Ken Stradling and the Bristol Guild
Lecture in person at M Shed and online
13 October 2022, 19:30—21:00
Talk by Cleo Witt, Acting Chair of Trustees of the Collection and a long-term associate and friend of Ken Stradling
Ken Stradling MBE was the Bristol Guild, an absolute treasure house of design and craft which he created single-handedly in Park Street. He spent 60 amazing years at the there selling everything for the home, chosen with his unerring eye for quality and fun. It’s an extraordinary story of travel, friendship and success – now enshrined in the collection he found he had accumulated on retirement and established as a Trust to inspire and delight visitors and students.
Sitting Pretty
Exhibition of chairs
15 October – 12 November 2022
Curated by Tanya Martin
We all sit – and we sit in chairs. Chairs are easy to take for granted but are fascinating in themselves. Chairs have been around for centuries and are everywhere we go, with infinite variations. At the same time, those variations and changes can hold so much meaning.
In this exhibition Tanya brings together a variety of beautiful chairs from the Stradling Collection, many of them true design icons.
Curator’s tours
Beautiful objects, fascinating stories
Book here for the opportunity to see the whole Collection.
One of the features of the Stradling Collection is the stories about the objects, the makers, the building and Bristol’s place in craft and design history – thanks to the work of Ken Stradling – vividly brought to life by our curator, Tanya Martin. An architect and ceramicist herself, Tanya’s fascinating tours of the Collection are a real journey through the alchemy and magic of craft and design.
Tickets £15 per person
