Replete with a variety of unique vessel forms – cups, pots, urns, trays, baskets and and bottles – Unboxing the Collection was an opportunity to reflect on how we understand the vessel as a familiar everyday object providing extraordinary insights into creative interconnectedness, what brings humans closer in common whatever their own time or context. Although vessels were at the forefront of the show, the exhibition Exploring the Vessel also marked an important moment to reflect on Crafts Council Collection more broadly. It is vital that this national collection for contemporary craft is representative of the true breadth of makers contributing to it, materials, techniques, and objects that inform how we see ourselves. It provided a moment in time, a holding space, to reckon with both the tangible and intangible beauty and materiality of craft through something every human has contact with – vessels of all kinds. “The sentimental value that everyday objects hold is definitely something that I’ve become more conscious of through working on this project,” says Dalton. “It’s not necessarily what they hold practically, but emotionally.”
Noah Mclean is a member of Crafts Council’s Young Craft Citizens. Noah supported Crafts Council’s collections team and curator Lewis Dalton Gilbert to present Unboxing the Collection in October 2024.