Output details

Creativity and Craft Production in Middle and Late Bronze Age Europe (CinBA)

<29> Jefferies was online curator for the EC Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) funded project, CinBA: Creativity and Craft Production in Middle and Late Bronze Age Europe. The online exhibition represented the “live” participatory component of CinBA with co-funding from the UK Crafts Council. The research examined developments in craft production and design and their origins in the Bronze Age, with a focus on pottery, textiles and metalwork. It explored the potential impact these objects have today as a source of inspiration for creative engagement across diverse groups, including contemporary “makers”. Explicit investigation of how craft makers today find inspiration by engaging with prehistoric objects is unique to the CinBA Project. Responses of makers and artists to prehistoric objects, the inherently valuable, have not traditionally been given attention within Heritage and Museum Studies where the focus tends to fall on the experience of visitors and the public at large. Over 150 contemporary craft students from 5 UK institutions had contact with the live component of the CinBA project. Those who went on to use the project to develop new work were invited to submit their sketchbooks, supporting designs, and completed objects in competition for representation in an online exhibition curated by Jefferies. The work of 12 outstanding students is presented in the resulting exhibition.

Jefferies delivered a keynote, “Creative Interpretations: material culture and visual perception” at the CinBA International conference at Magdalene College. Cambridge, 10-11th April 2013. Keynote on 10th April. This paper has been published on line to accompany the exhibition catalogue. Jefferies was part of the final dissemination panel to discuss the HERA projects and their impact on cultural at the British Library, London, May 30th 2013.

The online exhibition of emerging and established artists was showcased at Museum of Anthropology and Archeology, Cambridge, April 2012.