Galerie - 10 Standout Objects Discovered at London’s Collect Craft Fair

Victoria Woodcock, Galerie, March 3, 2023
In London’s stately Somerset House, Collect craft fair is currently underway (until March 5). The grand neoclassical building overlooking the Thames has been commandeered by the Crafts Council—a British non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of craft practices. Its annual event, now in its 19th edition, is “the leading international fair for contemporary craft”, says its director Isobel Dennis. “The year’s range of galleries and artistic voices is so rich in content, [involves] so much storytelling, and really pushes the boundaries of the art disciplines of making.”

3. Xanthe Somers, Fruits of Our Forefathers (2022), at Galerie Revel

A first time exhibitor at Collect, Bordeaux-based Galerie Revel is an exciting showcase of emerging talent. Unmissable in its Collect display are the large-scale ceramic vessels by Zimbabwean sculptor Xanthe Somers, whose glazed stoneware works bedecked in vibrant colors and motifs are at once pleasingly playful and thought-provokingly poignant. The 120cm-high Fruits of Our Forefathers (2022) combines African wax fabric with sculpted hands and cherries—a fruit Somers only saw in books when growing up in Zimbabwe, and which she uses as “a symbol of British culture in Zimbabwe,” she says. “The false dreams sold as progression and Christian emancipation by the British colonists are still prevalent – and are passed down through generations of remaining privilege, hence the title.”

 
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