Ypres 2016- The Exhibition Team

Ypres 2016 is an international forging event in Ypres, Belgium, from the 1st to the 6th of September 2016. This year the aim is to create a Cenotaph to commemorate those on all sides both military and civilian, who fell, or were touched by the First World War.

To accompany activities in the Grote Markt, there will be a major curated exhibition and the really exciting news is that I am on the BABA exhibition team that will be curating and co-ordinating the exhibition! The plan is to get both students and professionals from across the world working to the same brief. Last week we had our first meeting at Tim Mackereth’s forge in Lincolnshire. It’s an incredible forge, designed by John Nash and its 198 miles to drive there, so it was quite a trip.

The first task is to write the brief in collaboration with Professor Heiner Zimmerman from Steneby and have it ready to launch at the forthcoming BABA AGM (It will also be available on the Ypres 2016 website). Our plans are ambitious; we’d like to work with students at all the major centres across the globe that teach forged metal design and our hope is that students will be able to Skype each other as they develop their proposals and final pieces. It’s going to be a great opportunity to embed internationalism within the course, so there will be plenty more blog posts to come.

We would like the exhibition to tour to at least three countries within Europe and have a high quality catalogue to accompany it. Very ambitious and very exciting!! This weekend I am heading off to Belgium to check out the exhibition venue and work out whether there is a lift, whether we can attach things to the wall and all of those logistical challenges of installing a show in an unknown space.

Here is a picture of the BABA exhibition team, from left to right:

Steve Rooke- Chair of BABA , Elspeth Bennie- Blacksmith, Del Done (me!), Pippa David- Blacksmith and Tim Mackereth- Treasurer of BABA.

Del