If being part of the craft community provides any perks, spending your days working within the national collection for craft is surely a top-tier one (even if we do say so ourselves). Dafydd Powell Halls is in precisely that position as the second cohort of Young Craft Citizens placement holder, working to deliver an audit of Crafts Council Collection as part of the Craft for the People project. Across the life of the project, the work done by YCC placement holders will help Crafts Council engage people across the UK in the national collection for craft, delivering hands-on workshops, research events and collection tours.
Introducing Young Craft Citizens and Craft for the People
Young Craft Citizens (YCC) is Crafts Council’s collective of young people between 16-30, often from backgrounds that have been under-represented in the arts, who are interested in shaping the future of craft, design and making in the UK.
Craft for the People is Crafts Council’s three-year programme to transform its collections store into a space for public access and learning, generously funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. As part of that programme, there are twelve, six-month YCC placements (four for each year of the programme) embedded in Crafts Council’s collections team to deliver this transformation. The people coming into these roles from their YCC membership bring their valuable perspectives to bear on the programme, as early-career arts and culture professionals from a wide range of backgrounds, helping to shape how the project is conceptualised and delivered. In turn, they make use of a unique opportunity to work within a national collection, closely supported by Deborah Ridley, Crafts Council’s Senior Programme and Collections Manager, in building their skills and career networks.
The first two YCCs to undertake placements were Merle Nunneley, who came to the programme having studied architecture and Sabrina Chu, who studied arts administration after working in Taiwan’s cultural and music communities. Having completed their placement, Sabrina took up a permanent role as Collections Co-ordinator within the Collections team and has developed the first-ever public tour of the collection, to be held within the Collections Store they helped design and deliver.
Merle and Sabrina were instrumental in delivering the first phase of the YCC placement programme, while Dafydd’s work is fundamental in transforming the collections for better public engagement.
Dafydd has taken a moment to share his experiences so far.