Picks of the month: design events to catch in August

Exhibition: Eternally Yours, at Somerset House

Eternally Yours is a free exhibition that aims to explore themes like care, repair and healing through showcasing historical artefacts that embrace the process of upcycling and repurposing. By encouraging visitors to recognise the emotional value of items it is also meant to provoke thoughts about our relationship with the planet.

At the heart of the exhibition is The Beasley Brothers’ Repair Shop, designed by Carl Clerkin. The installation draws inspiration from traditional East End repair shops and features live demonstrations and workshops where visitors will be able to see designers like Gretta Gschwendtner and Peter Marigold transform discarded objects into something new.

Somerset House resident Superflux is also presenting a collection of speculative futuristic designs inspired by experimental film The Intersection. The collection aims to explore the connection between activism and repair in art and design and offer critique on consumer culture and wastefulness.

This exhibition will run until 25th September at Somerset House, London. Tickets are available on the Somerset House website.

Book: Curating Design: Context, Culture and Reflective Practice, by Donna Loveday

Curating Design aims to introduce the idea of design as a curatorial practice while offering a series of case studies. Covering curations both in and out of museums, Loveday attempts to trace the origins of the practice of collecting and exhibiting from the 19th century all the way up to design museums in the present day.

She aims to illustrate how the role of the curator has changed since the 1980s, as they became much more than just keepers of a collection. Curating as a practice can now be applied to the production of a number of cultural and creative outputs, from exhibitions and art festivals to museums and galleries.

Loveday attempts to explores the effect of curatorial practice on design, as new design museums open around the world featuring various exhibitions on popular culture. The book includes interviews with leading practitioners from international design and arts museums who try to highlight contemporary challenges and best practices in design curatorship.

Curating Design: Context, Culture and Reflective Practice, by Donna Loveday is published by Bloomsbury Visual Arts. It will be available to buy from Amazon on 25th August from £21.99.

Workshop: Screen printing with Becky Thomas, at The Margate School

Graphic designer and The Margate School (TMS) visual communication coordinator Becky Thomas will run a half-day workshop in its TMS Print Space. While working in pairs, participants will be taught how to create a stencil for a two-colour print. Following that, they will expose a screen using photo-sensitive emulsion and print it onto paper.

All materials will be provided on the day. The TMS Print Space is located on the second floor of the building. Participants are encouraged to inform TMS of any accessibility requirements upon booking by emailing [email protected].

This workshop will take place on 20th August in the TMS Print Space at The Margate School. Tickets can be bought for £50 on The Margate School website.

Exhibition: Football: Designing the Beautiful Game, at Design Museum London

Its your last chance the catch the Football: Designing the Beautiful Game exhibition which is now in its final month. Featuring five sections on Performance, Identity, Crowds, Spectacle, and Play, it intends to allow visitors to explore how design has pushed the game to its emotional and technical limits.

Involving over 500 objects, the exhibition includes films and interviews in sporting performance, kit development, stadium design and more. It attempts to outline the defining moments from football history, with particular objects telling the stories of club legacies and game legends including Pelé, Michelle Ackers, Diego Maradona and Pernille Harder.

Also included in the exhibition is an immersive 3D installation that aims to simulate a football stadium, which was designed by OMMX. Shaz Madani is responsible for the 2D design work.

This exhibition will run until 29th August at the Design Museum, London. Tickets are available for around £18.50 on the Design Museum website.

Event: SPOT Design Market, Glasgow

SPOT Design Market will be hosting its first in-person summer event, supported by Creative Scotland. The event involves a series of workshops and corresponding markets and exhibitions, which aim to give an insight into the work of various makers, their skills, and inspirations.

It will also give visitors the opportunity to learn from them and get involved with the designing and making while having complete freedom to experiment. Those who take part in the workshops will also have their creations exhibited.

This year the market will host print designers like Max Machen, Lou Rowland and Lauren Morsely as well as ceramicists like Hunter Cermics and Alex Sickling. SPOT’s aim is to promote designer makers and offers a platform to “lift their capabilities and build on business goals alongside educating and offering opportunities to audiences and communities across the UK and around the globe online,” says founder and organiser Anna Hepburn.

The market will run from 11:00-16:00 on 14th August at 54 Calton Entry Glasgow, G40 2SB. More information can be found on the SPOT Design Market website.

Summer workshops for designers’ children

Sir John Soane’s Museum in London will host a 4-hour workshop for children aged 11-13 called Designing the Future on 4th August. Inspired by the museum’s current exhibition, Space Popular: The Portal Galleries, the young designers will be put into teams and asked to respond to a design brief.

Tickets can be bought on Eventbrite for £10. Children must attend independently.

Published illustrator Jessica Hartshorn will run a masterclass for children aged 11-16 Coventry’s Herbert Art Gallery and Museum. The 3-hour workshop will consist of storyboarding and character development exercises as well as design planning for book covers and comics. Young illustrators will come away with a front cover which they will have designed and illustrated themselves. There will be two sessions to choose from: 18th August from 10:30-13:30 or 25th August from 10:30-13:30.

Tickets can be bought on Eventbrite for £10. Parents are welcome to stay with children.

UAL will run a 4-day Future Creatives course for children aged 7-11 from 22nd-25th of August. Children will be given the chance to explore various art and design techniques and come out of the course with a multidisciplinary portfolio of work. Previously classes have covered 3D design, drawing, portrait painting, and mod roc sculptures.

Tickets can be bought on the UAL website for £140.