During this workshop, participants will have an opportunity to explore different plant fibres from the Braziers Park landscape, working with them to create coiled bowls and baskets. Participants will get to know a wide range of different crop residues, as well as to glean their own materials from the beautiful Walled Garden. Over the course of the day, use coiled basketry techniques to work these materials into different vessels. Participants will be encouraged to pick, snap, split, scrape, and prod plants, getting to know them and their weaving affordances. The emphasis will not be on having a perfected piece to take home. Instead, the focus will be on taking home skills and inspiration, creating space for experimentation, risks, and new understandings. This is the second of two Living Fibres workshops. It can be attended as a stand-alone workshop or as the second of the two-part series.

About the facilitator:

Fred Branson’s work combines experience in community arts, visual anthropology & agroecology. He is particularly interested in producing work that engages with both the materials and politics of different landscapes. His most recent work responds to the plants he encounters as part of his work on a small-scale vegetable farm in North Oxfordshire. This has led to experiments with cordage, coiled basketry, and most recently – thanks to funding from Arts Council England – the construction of camera obscura.

£65