Output details

Maximum Exposure: public engagement projects

The research encapsulates a portfolio of works on the relationship between craft, heritage and public engagement. The £6,500 Maximum Exposure commission was the result of an open call national competition from Somerset County Council (July 2011). Barber Swindells produced a large flat-bed inflatable sculpture (title: ‘One to Twenty’, measuring 13.7m x 7m) based on the individual flat-pattern components of a fireman’s glove, scaled up twenty times. The research unites the comparative craft (pattern cutting and specialist sewing skills) of the glove maker and bouncy castle maker. The sculpture exposes the heritage of the artisan glove making industry in Yeovil – the fireman’s glove is now used by 85% of British Fire Service. ‘One-to-Twenty’ was exhibited in Yeovil Glove Museum (May 2012), Huddersfield Art Gallery (June 2012) and formed part of a public engagement event in Yeovil Town Centre for Somerset Art Works (September 2012). Underpinning research on public engagement commenced in 2010 by re-crafting and embellishing sleeping bags discarded after Leeds Music Festival; the re-crafted sleeping bags were distributed to the homeless in Bradford during UK winter months. Barber Swindells was invited to exhibit an artist video of the sleeping bag project at the ‘VI International Biennale of Contemporary Textile Art’, The Diego Rivera Anahuacalli Museum, Mexico City (2011), and delivered a conference paper (blind peer-review) at the conference ‘Considerations Between Textiles and Society: A Recapitulation’, The Diego Rivera Anahuacalli Museum, Mexico City. Barber Swindells sleeping bag project was also shortlisted for a Times Higher Education Award (2011) for ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Community’.