Helen Felcey and Alice Kettle
Research and collaboration in places and pieces, ceramics and stitch.
Alice Kettle and Helen Felcey have a history of collaboration that began with the joint exhibition Place Settings. Alice Kettle was commissioned by Hampshire County Council to create a major public artwork for the Winchester Discovery Centre—a vivid and compelling exploration of the history of the city, and of the limits of machine stitch as a medium. At the same time, Helen Felcey’s residency at the Jingdezhen Experimental Factory in China culminated in a new body of work inspired by this journey, echoing experiences of the Chinese landscape and its people. Place Settings brought these projects and experiences together.
During the course of mounting the exhibition, conversations between Kettle and Felcey revealed shared concerns and shared methods. From these exchanges, collaborative works were created, marking a new phase in both artists’ practices. These collaborative explorations brought together two distinct areas of practice and two distinct characters through collaboration, spontaneity, and openness.
This collaborative approach later extended to the curatorship of projects including Pairings: Conversations, Collaborations, Materials, a conference at Manchester School of Art; 'The House of Eloi' for Unravelling Uppark; and the New Generation — Design for Living conference at Design Manchester in 2016.
