Barbara Chandler Invites All Graduate Creatives To Enter The 2022 GREEN GRADS Textile Challenge
GREEN GRADS is founded and curated by multi-award-winning design journalist Barbara Chandler @sunnygran who has covered design for over 30 years at the London Evening Standard.
As Barbara commented : “We support new graduates and the environment at one and the same time – an inarguable double whammy”
Info about being a Sponsor & Friend 2022
The second edition of GREEN GRADS will take place at the Planted design show during the London Design Festival in King’s Cross, London N1, over the weekend of September 24/25 2022.
Create A Collection With Industry Mentoring.
Get it printed professionally.
Exhibit at the GREEN GRADS design show to a large audience in central London during September’s London Design Festival 2022 with professional promotion and PR.
* Win £350
* Create a collection with industry mentoring
* Get it printed professionally
GREEN GRADS Are Recent Graduates Of UK Universities With Ideas To Heal The Planet
Who can apply? All graduates of MA/BA creative courses from 2020 to June 2022. You might still be a student now but you must have graduated before September 2022 when GREENGRADS 22 will be taking place.
And over that time, every summer she has visited New Designers (the UK’s major platform for new graduates in Islington, north London) to report and take photographs.
Because of the pandemic, this show was cancelled first in 2020, then in 2021.
Despite excellent on-line coverage, for two years in a row, graduates had no central platform to show their work in person to the design industry, including manufacturers, shops, galleries, curators, and the media, and the public at large.
So, as lockdown lifted in the summer of 2021, briefed by Sally Bent event director of New Designers, Barbara journeyed into England to find the graduates in their places of study, attending design/craft/art degree shows where running, or getting personal briefings.
On her itinerary were Plymouth, Loughborough, Leicester, Manchester, Kingston, Brighton and Stoke. London visits included Central Saint Martins, the RCA, Brunel, and Morley College.
Barbara also explored portfolios on the internet (including the New designers website) and social media posts. She says: “I was seeking out in effect the lost classes of 20/21. I felt they should have some attention. And I found that the quality and scope of work was outstanding.”
Demonstrably, the graduates deserved a national platform. This was generously offered by Deborah Spencer, co-founder and director of the pioneering Planted design show, launched in September 2021 in King’s Cross, London N1C, with a focus on biophilia and sustainability.
And So GREEN GRADS Was Born As A Stand-Alone Show Within Planted Over A Single Weekend In The King’s Cross Samsung Experience Space, London N1C.
Many months later, GREEN GRADS is gaining speed.
A second edition will be at Planted Community, 24/25 September 2022.
But before that, GREEN GRADS are at GRAND DESIGNS LIVE, ExCel, 1 Western Gateway, Royal Victoria Dock, London E16 1XL, 30 April – 8 May 2022.
Then in the autumn, GREEN GRADS visit the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair, 13-16 October 2022 in Victoria Baths, Hathersage Road, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester M13 0FE.
GREEN GRADS have also been invited to show a film on our project everyday in Salone Satellite at the 60th edition of the great international Salone del Mobile Milano (Milan Furniture Fair) 7-12 June 2022. *
Barbara’s photographs of New Designers 2009-2021 will be in a major show at New Designers, 29 June – July and 6 – 9 July 2022 at the Islington Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, Islington, London N1 0QH.
