Onward to Bury St Edmunds

Thanks to an invitation from Liz Cooper who saw the BBC Newsnight piece on my project, I had the pleasure of visiting the Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery and its exhibition on Make Do And Mend. Nine artists are taking part - their work inspired by the concept of making something out of the broken and disposable. They've all re-worked the old-fashioned concept of thrift and domestic economy. I especially enjoyed seeing what Hilary Jack has done with objects that she's found on the street, taken home, mended and reworked to produce something new and fresh. She took an old and damaged tennis racket that someone had chucked away and created this artwork by re-stringing it completely differently. Also inspiring was Armchair Politico, a joint project by Stephen Dixon and Alison Welsh, which reworks found textiles. And I'd love to take part in Kai-Oi Jay Yung's sock exchange where people are encouraged to bring in their old socks for reinvention. Here you can see the tent she's constructed out of second-hand textiles.

There's a certain irony for me in seeing Make Do And Mend make it into a gallery! But it also makes sense. Finding beauty in the ordinary. Mending as a form of healing. Political messages about our throw-away culture.