New festival celebrates craft across East and West Sussex

Sussex craft will be celebrated in all its richness and diversity at a special new countywide festival.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Now here's

00:06something exciting, something huge too, Sussex Craft Week, the first ever organised by Jessica

00:12Wood. Why now?

00:16There's a big craft revival going on and a massive interest in craft and Sussex has got

00:22a huge craft heritage that needs to be revealed and reconnected to and it's also got a lot

00:29of the top makers, are all based in Sussex. So it's got various different elements to

00:36it.

00:38Well you've gone for scales straight away haven't you? Give me the figures again, there's such

00:42a lot that's happening isn't there as part of this?

00:46Yeah, we've got over 60 events at just under 40 venues across East and West Sussex and they

00:54vary from Westing College, from the big craft colleges to museums, Delaware Pavilion, Towner

01:04Eastbourne, Hastings Contemporary to open studios. So there are makers giving demonstrations in

01:13their own studios. We've got studio safaris so you can get on a mini bus and go and tour

01:17some of the most well known, famous makers who don't usually open their studios.

01:23And that's a really impressive range, isn't it? Presumably at Sussex Craft Week you had

01:29to include pretty much all of Sussex, didn't you?

01:31Yeah, yeah. And a lot of it is, it's a mixture of in the main towns and then also in rural places

01:40and villages because a lot of makers live in more rural environments. So yeah, it goes right across.

01:46Yeah.

01:47Wow. And presumably the upshot of all this is proof that Sussex Craft is in a very good place,

01:53isn't it? Thriving?

01:55It's really thriving. I mean it comes from a very strong history, from glass to iron to

02:03the Bloomsbury Group, to Grafham Weavers, to the Ditchling Guilds. There's a huge history,

02:12so that feeds into it. But yeah, there's amazing work going on right now and we just want to bring

02:20it to everybody's attention.

02:21Fantastic. Well, it sounds wonderfully ambitious and

02:24Good luck!

02:26Sussex Craft Week. Jessica, hope it goes brilliantly. Sure it will. Lovely to speak to you. Thank you.

02:31Lovely to speak to you. Thank you.