'Thank you again for being so easy to work with through this process, you made it really easy from start to finish (although I'm sure it wasn't for you!!) and the end product was such excellent quality. Everyone was exceptionally pleased, it's something that stands out rather than being just another piece of glass to stand in a display, people will really want to display them.'
Cherokee Mahoney, Plymouth City Council
Cherokee Mahoney, Plymouth City Council
The awards were designed by Jason Marks of Fab Lab Plymouth (fablabplymouth.org). They were made by Fab Lab Plymouth and the glass artist Amy Whittingham (glass artist and technician at Plymouth College of Art).
Features of distinction from each selected building or space were used as starting points to develop a series of bespoke awards. After initial concept sketching on paper the designs were drawn up in Rhino 3D (a computer aided design program). These designs were then 3D printed at the Fab Lab. Amy Whittingham was subsequently able to take these prints, make plaster moulds from them and cast the printed forms into glass. The glass forms were then finished, sand blasted and polished. The text was drawn up in Adobe Illustrator and from this stencils were cut from vinyl. The text was then etched onto the glass awards and, finally, the glass was mounted onto a hardwood base.
The awards are a combination of traditional craft practice and the the latest digital design and fabrication methods and techniques. Given the short lead time between the selection of the Abercrombe Awards winners and the presentation ceremony this was a challenging commission, but we are delighted with the results and we look forward to working with the Council again.
UK (Burnt/Unburnt), (2011-17) is a map of Great Britain composed with matchsticks planted into the wall and subsequently ignited. The aspect of the shape of the country once burnt becomes a shadow that keeps in itself the marks and the traces of the extinguished fire.
Conceived by the artist Claire Fontaine as the trace of an action that we witness in the aftermath, as a sign of a tragedy that we perceived too late. This work whose form is at the same time a painting (made by the fire), a sculpture (of the remanence of the matches) and a video (showing the action of the burning in the space), acts as a strong disturbance of the white cube: its pungent smell invades the space and incongruously brings a sense of danger and precariousness to the visitors.
Fab Lab Plymouth were commissioned by We The People Are The Work producer Vickie Fear to help create a large map of the UK, that would span four 8ft x 4ft flameproof MDF sheets, with 58,000 individual holes to hold matchsticks. During the private view of the exhibition, these matches would all be lit.
58,000 match sized holes was no problem for our large 8ft x 4ft CNC router, so we set to work preparing the cutting file and started machining. Check out the below images showing the map after being lit, with burnt areas and smoke marks filling the gallery walls.
'We The People Are The Work' was envisioned to be:
"A poetic and emotional exploration of our feelings during unstable and trying times, it suggests that the events unfolding across the planet are the cause of the climate change inside our souls."
We The People Are The Work was presented by PVAPG (Plymouth Visual Art Programming Group), a partnership between The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art, KARST, Peninsula Arts at Plymouth University, Plymouth Arts Centre and The Box, Plymouth.
We The People Are The Work was part of Horizon, a collaborative two year programme of visual contemporary arts, funded through Arts Council England's Ambition for Excellence fund and led by Plymouth Culture.
To find out more about We The People Are The Work, visit their website here, and get in touch with us via fablab@pca.ac.uk to discuss any large scale CNC machining jobs you or your business may have in mind.
With a pallet of corrugated card and a laser cutter, we set to, to design and create spaces and installations to house the artists work. Various structures and pieces of temporary furniture were created, most in the wonderful medium of corrugated card!
A group of pre-degree students worked with the Product Design tutors to design and create a conveyor belt, turning babies into tin cans. Produced on the Fab Lab’s CNC router.
Henrietta Pane’s Tea Enclosure gave visitors the opportunity to reflect on their experiences of the exhibition whilst enjoying a nice cup to tea.
Are you a local artist looking incorporate digital manufacturing processes into your practice, or are you just interested to learn more about Fab Lab processes? If so give the Fab Lab a ring, or drop us an email. We are always keen to work with artists.
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fablab@pca.ac.uk