Lisburn celebrates August craft month

This year the theme for the annual festival is ‘Made in Northern Ireland’, which will shine a light on the innovative, intricate and contemporary work currently taking place in this thriving sector of the arts and creative industries.

Linen

Among the ‘making it’ makers is textile artist Michelle Stephens, who is based at the R Space Gallery in Castle Street. Michelle is deeply interested in the area’s illustrious linen making past.

“The fact that I am placed at R-Space Gallery in Lisburn has enabled me to access the Irish linen Centre and Lisburn Museum more freely for research purposes. This has further informed my practice and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future,” she said.

R Space Gallery is also hosting a major new exhibition: ‘Linen Diaspora’. Curated by Professor Karen Fleming from the University of Ulster, the exhibition examines links between the Huguenots exiled from France and flax culture in Eastern Canada and Ireland. The exhibition of contemporary work focuses on materials and processed related to flax production.

Craft Month will feature a huge array of exhibitions, workshops, festivals, seminars and talks from all corners of Northern Ireland. Its message is that Northern Ireland is a great place to view and buy contemporary craft because of the explosion of interest in ceramics, textiles, glass and jewellery making.

For more information about the events taking place during August Craft Month visit www.craftni.org