gayfield Talks
gayfield Talks invited contemporary makers, designers, curators and researchers to explore the role and context of design in contemporary Scottish cultural life.
View our gayfield Talks on our Youtube channel.
2016 gayfield Talks
gayfield Talk 12 - African Routes: Using Art and Design to Reframe Development
We welcomed 2016 with a talk and drinks reception on Thursday 14th January in memory of architect and designer Alero Olympio. The talk was led by Renee Neblett, Director of the Kokrobitey Institute in Ghana.
Accra, the capital of Ghana is a city transformed by outside investment in recent years. With new roads, luxury apartments, boutique hotels and world class restaurants, Accra typifies the economic potential of 21st century Africa. But one only need scratch the surface to find a city and ecosystem in crisis. If we as a global community are sincere about environmental stability then perhaps we can create new models that build on the existing sustainable practice central to local traditions.
Renee explored the role of art and design in this context and how local communities understand their environment in relation to the broader world, providing examples from the pioneering work of the Kokrobitey Institute and Design Centre.
In this talk Chris Fleet and Anna Feintuck discuss Edinburgh’s history of mapmaking and manufacture. As a centre of cartographic industry, Edinburgh was home to world-renowned mapmakers such as John Bartholomew & Son. Learn more about these maps of Edinburgh and the tales they can tell – as well as those they choose to hide – and discover Gayfield’s history as a bustling hub of light industry and creative manufacture. Chris Fleet is Senior Maps Curator at the National Library of Scotland and Anna Feintuck is co-curator on PACE: Walking by Design (Gayfield Creative Spaces), and PhD researcher for Mapping Edinburgh’s Social History (University of Edinburgh).
In this talk, Gunnar Groves-Raines (co-founder of GRAS) focuses on the experiences, successes and challenges of an architectural practice with making at its heart. He presents a series of completed architectural projects, as well as more experimental collaborations borne out of the Maker Library Network. Gunnar Groves-Raines studied Architecture at the University of Strathclyde before co-founding GRAS with Stuart Falconer in 2006. GRAS is an architecture and design studio that exists to create extra-ordinary things and places through the exploration of ideas, materials, techniques and technologies.
In this talk we explore the following questions - How can emerging designers manage to make it through the tough times that follow graduation? When creatives combine into hubs so their localities can celebrate their emergence and local economies can develop. We can map these collaborative working facilities across Scotland and when we 'join up the dots' the term 'creative economy' starts to make sense as a national resource. The talk is chaired by Caroline Parkinson of CP Creative Project Management with contributions from Janine Matheson on her involvement with the Creative HubKit and Lynsey Smith (former Director of Creative Edinburgh) talking about the British Council European Hub Network initiative. Supported by Gayfield Creative Spaces.
Edinburgh Festival luminaries and emerging talents gather to recollect and plan art and design collaborations. This gayfieldTalk is presented by Pecha Kucha Edinburgh: Curated by Gordon Duffy and sponsored by Studio DuB. Pecha Kucha Edinburgh gratefully acknowledges the support of New Media Scotland and Gayfield Creative Spaces for hosting.
Paul Simmons of Timorous Beasties and emerging independent textile designer Laura Spring discuss their experience of creating thriving studios through design innovation and quality production.
Leading Dutch designer Piet Hein Eek, from Eindhoven, talks about the way design thinking can create a more sustainable model of living. Introduced by Amanda Game, independent curator and Creative Adviser to Gayfield Creative Spaces.
Leading UK architect Richard Murphy OBE and Annie Pollock, Director of Landscape Design and Architecture at the University of Stirling’s Dementia Services Development Centre discuss the role of landscape design in creating health - giving environments. Introduced by Celine Sinclair, Chief Executive of The Yard.
Alan Shaw of the Centre for Advanced Textiles Glasgow, and Geoffrey Mann designer and Head of Glass at Edinburgh College of Art, discuss the role of digital tools in the development of their design process. Introduced by Josie Steed, Course Leader of Fashion & Textile Design, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen.
