Made in China

As most of you who follow our blog might know, CreateVoice is a group of young people who contribute to the planning, organising and delivering of strands of the V&A's young people's Create! programme. One of the events we run monthly is a Create Tour, a tour of a V&A gallery led by a CreateVoice member. 

This April, we selected the China export gallery (gallery 47f) and I got the chance to present it to a group. The tour took place on 26th April and started at the Grand Entrance at 8pm.

To curate my walk through the gallery, I spent half a day at the V&A, researching and reading about the different artefacts housed in the collection. It was an enriching experience as I discovered facts I previously hadn't known about the world export trade and the direct and indirect effects that China's entry into the global market had on major industrial zones from the 1500s.

Coming from a commercial studies background I was intrigued by all the economic ramifications of a port in Canton, firstly set up by the Portuguese, and the subsequent expansion of the Chinese export of products: silk, tea, lacquer, ivory and porcelain. It was fascinating to see how the demand for tea in Britain created a joint demand for sugar, giving rise to two major British industrial triangles of India-China-Britain and West Indies-Africa-Britain respectively; not to mention that it led to the birth of a national beverage!

What also caught my eye was the supply chain management that was in place even five hundred years ago on an international level. When I saw the ivory boxes and fans my mind went back in time, imagining Chinese artisans working in China with ivory sourced from suppliers, who extracted it from elephants in African and Indian forests, to produce immaculate souvenirs and items for export. And finally the emergence of new marketing techniques when producers in China married local handicrafts with European iconography and imagery to please Western tastes. This helped me understand and put into perspective that for traders and businessmen, not much has changed today (apart from the use of ivory!).

It is a small gallery and one could easily miss it, but if you dedicate some time to it, you will realise how significant these objects have been in making China what it is today. Listed below is the route we took during the tour, with each museum number in brackets.

1. Chinese export art panel - entry to gallery

2. Fan depicting a scene in Canton (T. 118-1966)

3. Silk panel depicting martyrdom of St. Sebastian (T. 245-1921)

4. Tea caddy with filigree work (M. 114-1919)

5. Six panel lacquer screen (W. 37-1912)

6. Model of a boat made from ivory, wood and silk (A. 6-1936)

7. Boxes made from elephant tusks (1769-1982), tortoise shell (636-1877) and mother of pearl (392-1878)

8. Porcelain crockery with European imagery (C. 47&A-1928)

Words: Yashraj Jain

Image: V&A

Fashion Styles for the Famous: Bowie Weekender

Last Friday and Saturday CreateVoice members helped out at Jane Bowler's 'Fashion Styles for the Famous' workshop at the David Bowie Weekender. With over 800 participants the workshop was a huge success, attracting visitors of all ages to create their own outfit for the celebrity of their choice. From minimal, toned-down designs to bright Bowie-inspired creations, hundreds of designs were stuck up all over the lunch room by the end of the weekend. Thank you to Jane Bowler for letting us take part!

Words & images: Laura Blair

Conservation science, David Bowie & Chinese exports: Friday 26th April

This Friday 26th April, the Victoria and Albert Museum will see hundreds of Londoners pass through the museum's doors to begin their weekend on a high note. Here's a snapshot of what's in store:

Fashion Styles for the Famous

Jane Bowler and CreateVoice welcome young people to join them to create the ultimate look for your favourite music icon in the Sackler Centre. This is a drop-in event, so just turn up; all materials will be provided. Starting at 6:30pm, more information here.

CreateInsights

CreateVoice, the young people's collective, has invited a Conservation Scientist to throw some light on the what's and how's of working in conservation. This event will be free and held in the Sackler Centre at 6:30pm - ask at reception on the night.

CreateTour

Join a CreateVoice member on his journey through the China Export gallery and learn how Chinese export trade has impacted the world since the Portuguese first set up a port in Canton in the 1500's. Learn how silk, tea, lacquer, ivory and porcelain took over world trade. The tour will meet in the Grand Entrance at 8pm - look for a Create Tour sign. For more information on other upcoming tours click here.

Plus...

There are a host of other events as part of the David Bowie Weekender and The FridayLate 'David Bowie is... Making A Scene' - give the pub a miss and come along on Friday!

Words: Yashraj Jain
Images: 1) courtesy of the V&A, 2) silk panel, V&A online archives

David Bowie is... A Lad Insane

Arriving at the V&A on Friday 22nd March, the museum was buzzing with an exceptional number of milling crowds, which could have been surprising (the Friday Late was last last night) had it not been for the members' preview of the long-awaited David Bowie retrospective 'David Bowie is...'

Geoffrey Marsh is the Director of the Theatre and Performance Department at the museum, and is a co-curator of the Bowie retrospective: his enthusiasm for this particular exhibition was absolutely charming. Having been giving talks all day to members of the V&A, members of CreateVoice were fortunate that Geoffrey Marsh was able to stop by and discuss his role at the museum, and divulge exactly how such a show-stopping exhibition is curated.

If you go to the exhibition, you will be able to feast your eyes on over 300 items from David Bowie's archives, chosen by the curators from thousands of objects held in storage in New York. Having been granted unlimited access to Bowie's private archives, the V&A team were tasked with sorting through a vast quantity of objects - from sketches on napkins to the custom-made costumes you'll see on the posters - Geoffrey even joked that it's easy to believe David Jones has kept everything he has ever owned, and with an archiving system that Marsh suggests even outperforms that of the V&A, the collection is incredibly well archived.

The exhibition itself explores the identities created and performed by the London Boy born as David Jones, looking at exactly who David Bowie "is" (an exhibition title Geoffrey revealed was created by legendary music journalist Paul Morley - who intends to write an entire book on Bowie during a two-day period at the museum: worth checking out!). The art of provoking a reaction through self-presentation is something which has inspired many artists, and makes Bowie so worthwhile as an V&A exhibition subject: the performance aspect of many artist's work is important because of Bowie's legacy, but with Bowie, he is the performance.

Join CreateVoice members at the Bowie Weekender - programme here

See 'David Bowie is...' at the Victoria and Albert museum until August 11th - advanced booking recommended!

Words: Rachel May

The Dialogue Cafe Project

After three months of email exchanges and equipment testing over the period of gluttony, the Dialogue Cafe project officially sailed off at the Victoria and Abert Museum on the evening of Wednesday, 19th February, the date that marked the first of two sessions with participants from different countries.

The Dialogue Cafe enterprise promotes city-to-city exchanges and multi-city events through its provision of efficient, web-conferencing technology. These sessions are aimed at promoting learning, sharing and

collaboration between all parties.

We, the Youth Panel at the Victoria and Albert Museum, invited two institutions to join in on our very first open video-discussion. Representatives from Musee de L’Art Moderne and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in our neighbour Paris and students from Cleveland Institute of Art, Case Western Reserve University and MOCA Cleveland were participants on the day with Strategic Research & Insight Consultant, Brett Booth from THE OVOID, guest-starring as moderator for our debate topic: ‘Representation of the Body - art & design, culture & sports’.

Although all three cities were given the same topic prior to the session, we managed to present some very stimulating and rather different view points and examples throughout the discussion. Together, we managed to not only widen each others’ outlooks beyond our own societal and cultural gender assumptions and stereotypes but also see, and understand better, the obvious differences between the cities through their discussion points and mannerisms.

Despite ending the conference on time at a pre-agreed time limit of two hours, the three cities agreed that the session could have been easily extended as our interpersonal dynamics were building up and information exchange became increasingly interesting as minutes went on. Overall, it was an extremely insightful session that will potentially lead us to further (and near-future) collaborative opportunities with the other cities.

For some of the ideas discussed, look at the #dcafeyouth hashtag on Twitter!

Words: Katrina Too

Keith Harrison Project

A couple of weeks ago some of us had the opportunity to participate a project with Keith Harrison - one of the Victoria and Albert Museum's ceramicists in residence. We started on Saturday with a little introduction, - Keith showed us some of his past works and explained his plans for an exciting upcoming project, the concept behind which is; 'Collective Action for a new perspective'. The idea for our project with Keith was to build a structure next to, or over a famous ceramic work. Not only to look to it from another point of view, but also to surpass the piece of art in a way, taking inspiration in the Architecture gallery of the Victoria and Albert Museum. We began working in pairs to make a basic model with clay and bamboo sticks, It was great fun to do! We ended up with four exciting models and to conclude the first day - discussed the ideas we had.

The aim of the Sunday workshop was to build a larger model of our proposed ideas. On Sunday we made progress on building the real sculpture. Every group had different ways of approaching the brief and different idea’s so we ended up with greatly contrasting sculptures. They were all large-scale and primarily made of paper sticks and clay. We were all pleased with the results, which brought some new life into a previously quiet room at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

I think Keith's creative thought processes were very interesting as well as his concept behind the project which was to 'get over a famous piece of art', by just literally making a physical structure to 'get over it'. Being involved with this project has encouraged me to look differently at how I approach making art. Making use of creativity to take over a room was really interesting and Keith Harrison was engaging and enthusiastic to work with.              

For more information on Keith Harrison click: Here

and for more information on upcoming CreateVoice events click; Here

Words: Romy Snijders

CreateVoice presents... Gamechangers

This Friday the Victoria and Albert Museum plays host to our next event, Game Changers. We've been working on the programme for a couple of months based around the topic of Sport and Design. The programme has an amazing line up, with workshops by design consultancy IDEO, bicycle design classes by Ben Wilson and inspiring talks from Central St Martin's lecturers on technofabrics and their introduction into sportswear and fashion - along with lots of other great events! For the full programme click here. 

Everything is free, so just drop in on the night!

10% off in the V&A shop

Opportunity to win a pair of  Schwings

You can follow updates of the night or even join in on Twitter by using the hashtag #gamechangers13

For more CreateVoice updates search #createvoice on Twitter

CreateVoice presents... Game Changers

Friday 8 March 18:00-21:00