Please Touch: Improving access and developing the Crafts Study Centre's Handling Collection (360G-CFSurrey-A775787)
Funding Organisation
£8,928
Recipient Organisation
Funding to improve access and develop the Crafts Study Centre's Handling Collection
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Grant Details
| Award Date | 2025-09-09T00:00:00+00:00 |
| Last Modified | 2026-03-04T00:00:00+00:00 |
| Planned Dates: End Date | 2026-05-15T00:00:00+00:00 |
| Planned Dates: Duration (months) | 8 |
| Planned Dates: Start Date | 2025-09-01T00:00:00+00:00 |
| Primary issue | Heritage |
| Amount Awarded | 8928 |
| Grant Programme: Code | Heritage for All - Round 1 |
| Grant Programme: Title | Heritage for All |
| Impact Category | Connect people with the arts, culture and heritage |
| Amount Applied For | 8928 |
| Primary age group | Adults (26 – 65) |
| Primary beneficiary | Local residents |
| Beneficiary Location: Name | Waverley 003B |
| Beneficiary Location: Geographic Code | E01030885 |
| Beneficiary Location: Country Code | GB |
| Beneficiary Location: Geographic Code Type | LSOA |
| Recipient Org: Web Address | https://www.csc.uca.ac.uk/ |
| Recipient Org: Description | The Crafts Study Centre (CSC) is an accredited museum of British twentieth and twenty-first century craft and a research centre of the University for the Creative Arts (UCA). The collection comprises approximately 9,000 works in four material areas – ceramics, textiles, calligraphy and lettering, and furniture and wood – and associated archives. Since we were founded in 1970, we have worked with partners in higher education and beyond to support the research, practice and enjoyment of craft within the wider heritage landscape. The mission of the CSC is to nurture and celebrate the study and practice of craft in all its diverse forms. Harnessing the rich collections of twentieth and twenty-first century studio craft in its care, including maker archives, the CSC intends to make research into craft history and practice more accessible, dynamic, and relevant to audiences both in-person and online. Today, more people are engaging with craft, from devotees who commit their life to skilled making to occasional practitioners and consumers appreciative of the handmade. The CSC is open to all levels of study. Craft offers sensorial diversity in a world of digital ubiquity; it is taken up as a means of preserving what is important for communities and is often a pathway to wellbeing. These attributes were known to the studio craftspeople that feature in the CSC collections who understood craft holistically as a way of interrogating human relationships with the material world and suggesting alternative ways of being and living. With partners in the university, heritage and cultural sectors, local community groups, regional and national advocacy bodies for crafts, the CSC is determined to lead in advocating a permanent role for craft in the cultural landscape. Moving forward, we will be inclusive in achieving these goals, improving the digitisation of the collections, adopting an ambitious Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity strategy, and interrogating the collections to decentre canonical craft history, address gaps in knowledge, and explore the global craft cultures and international dialogues that underpinned British studio craft. The CSC encourages sustained engagement with contemporary craft and craft history through a number of channels. Any individual can book time in the CSC's research room to look at and handle collection items and archives relating to studio craft in the four material areas. The CSC has two exhibition spaces: one for the permanent collection (that changes annually) and another for temporary exhibitions that provides contemporary makers opportunities to present their work and research. The CSC runs lectures, study days, tours of the exhibitions, and participates in external events both in Farnham and beyond. The depth of the collections means that the CSC has an active loans programme, with CSC collection items on show in exhibitions both nationally and internationally seen by visitors numbering in the tens of thousands. The CSC has an active acquisitions committee with a budget to add works of craft to its collection. The remit for acquisitions is outlined in a Collections Development Policy that currently prioritises the collection of work to fill gaps within the collection. As a part of this the CSC has engaged in organising residencies and has commissioned work of contemporary craft. The Centre also publishes books and exhibition catalogues, can respond to enquiries from researchers, curators, students and other members of the public about the collection and histories of craft. Recent initiatives have also seen the CSC focus on its relationship with the town of Farnham, running discussion events, a special evening private view for members of a local artist network, and collaborations with the New Ashgate Gallery's Rising Stars early career makers programme that asked participants to respond to items within the CSC's collections. It is in this vein of local engagement that the CSC has developed the use of its handling collection, providing local audiences a chance to touch and handle museum objects. Developing this sensory engagement with the museum motivations this funding application to the Community Foundation for Surrey. |
| Recipient Org: Charity Number | 1179008 |