The National Festival of Making and artist Aliyah Hussain will deliver a series of contemporary ceramics workshops over an 8 week period in Blackburn town centre.

The workshops will explore the connection between jewellery, movement and memory through the production of playful, sculptural jewellery and a collaborative textile piece.

We would like to offer 12 people the opportunity to join these FREE workshops for reasons of professional or personal development. No creative experience is necessary. Each participant awarded a place on the workshop series will be given a bursary of £100. All materials will be provided during the workshops and participants will be gifted a set of tools to continue making their own jewellery at home.

Participants must be available to attend in-person workshops in Blackburn town centre on the following dates and times:

• Tuesday 2nd November – 6pm
• Tuesday 9th November – 6pm
• Monday 22nd November – 6pm
• Tuesday 7th December – 6pm
• Tuesday 14th December – 6pm

Each workshop will last approximately 2 hours. The workshop series is free to attend and all participants allocated a place will be awarded a bursary of £100 – this is in recognition of time commitment and possible travel expenses.

The bursary will only be awarded to participants who attend ALL workshops.

How to express your interest:

If you are interested in joining the workshop series, please email info@festivalofmaking.co.uk confirming that you can attend the above dates and times and include a short paragraph detailing why you would benefit from attending – reasons may include:

• Making for mindfulness
• Professional development for artists and creatives
• Meeting new people and working collaboratively

Expressions of Interest will be reviewed by the project team.

Emails must be sent by 9am on Monday 25th October and participants will be notified if they have been successfully awarded a place by 5pm on the 25th October.

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More about the Workshops:

For Aliyah, jewellery is intrinsically linked with memory,

My own memories are deeply connected to the sounds of jewellery on the bodies of family and friends, on occasions or just in the actions of the everyday. There is a percussiveness to it, a beat, a rhythm of the day.”

Whilst the workshops will ask participants to consider the past and the way our bodies connect memories to sounds and objects, the making itself will be tied into potential future moments – heirlooms in the making, jewellery designed to be worn, shown off, or gifted – as well as grounding participants in the present moment of mindful making.

Areas of skill focus will include: using the coil technique to create jewellery; Nerikomi – using dyed clay to create colour and pattern; glazing and decorating; collaborative embroidery with ceramics.

A further outcome of the workshop series will be an Audio Visual piece produced by Aliyah. This will explore how the sounds and movement of jewellery can evoke memory, and will include a sound composition of recordings made during and after the workshops as well as video clips and images.

The Audio Visual piece and collaborative textile outcome will be presented at the National Festival of Making 2022.

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About the Artist:

Aliyah Hussain is a multidisciplinary artist whose work crosses the intersection with contemporary art and craft. Her practice approaches themes found within feminist science fiction literature, geology, and nature, she works with abstract forms with a focus on pattern, form, and colour. Collaboration is an important part of her practice and she feels most at home working alongside other people. Recent works and collaborations include Potential Wor(l)ds with Anna Bunting-Branch, shown at, Bergen Kunsthall, Norway, Sonic Acts, Amsterdam, and Castlefield Gallery, Manchester (2018-present), The Sleep of Plants, for Holden Gallery, Manchester (2020), and The kitchen table collective with Human Libraries, Bootle/Crosby (2020-present).

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