Two of The Northern School of Art’s 2024 BA (Hons) Textiles and Surface Design graduates will be banging the drum for the environment using design and craft as part of a band of 22 new graduates exhibiting at the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair (GNCCF) in October.

Jaime Curá, pictured above right, and Laura Wigham, on the left, who graduated this summer, have been invited to be a part of Green Grads, an innovative platform for recent UK graduates “with ideas to heal the planet”.

Founded in 2021 by multi award-winning design journalist Barbara Chandler, known for her long-running pages in the London Evening Standard, Green Grads is now in its fourth year and currently promotes around 200 graduates, through shows at major venues, intimate salons, Instagram, a website and a YouTube channel.

From 17-20 October 2024, for the third time, Green Grads in the North will fill the picturesque blue Edwardian changing cubicles of Manchester’s historic Edwardian Victoria Baths, now converted to an exhibition and events space, with delightful period details including original art nouveau tiles and stained glass.

Green Grads is financed by contributions from a growing cooperative of responsible forward-facing British brands that include Ercol, Heal’s, Anglepoise, SCP, Benchmark and many other respected names (listed on the Green Grads website) meaning that graduates exhibit free of charge.

All Green Grads are personally selected after extensive trawls of degree shows both in person and on-line. “There is a huge discrepancy at the graduate design showcase New Designers in the way universities present their work,” Barbara reports.

“Many show work with the minimum of information, even omitting vital details of how to get in touch with graduates.” Moreover, she says, many stands are sparsely populated with graduates failing to be present with their work – “such missed opportunities.” Some graduates are “more concerned with talking among themselves, or looking at their phones, than looking outward to see what might interest visitors, learning in the process who they are and what career prospects they can offer” she comments.

“But The Northern School of Art was a joy. So far as I could see every graduate was there – and the one who was missing was speedily summoned and came rushing back from another appointment. There was a hugely-impressive central bank of portfolios, and graduates had prepared individual statements packed with details, backed up with business cards. The display were beautifully arranged, and the atmosphere was bubbling with enthusiasm yet thoroughly professional.”

Barbara adds some little tips: “Do include your phone number on your business cards, and add an image for recognition – sometimes, flipping through a mound of cards,  it’s vital to get in touch quickly. Check your spam regularly. And if sending images by email, make sure each one is labelled firstly with your name, then two of three words of description.”

Jaime Curá and Laura Wigham are the two Northern School of Art textile graduates Barbara picked to be part of Green Grads in the North at GNCCF.

“I’d identified Jaime as a must-meet at New Designers as I’d seen her work on her degree show info and fallen in love with these jackets,” Barbara explained. “They will be total showstoppers at GNCCF.

“She told me the jackets are wearable art. Tales of old garments, scraps of fabric and materials destined for landfill. They are also a plea for slow fashion – ‘hit the pause button.’ And a scream against fast fashion.

“There was a lot of hard work/experimentation. Firstly a zero -waste pattern. Then perfecting ways to join waste textiles, including a large consignment of denim bits from HIUT. Not to mention fusing waste plastics with a heat press. Jaime’s jacket called ‘Plastic Paradox: Our Polluted Planet’ includes plastics often not recycled or difficult to do so – there are even old mixtapes from the 90s in there.”

After meeting Laura at the New Designers exhibition Barbara commented: “Welcome to the “The Wild North” where feisty Laura Wigham fills a brimming portfolio with punchy patterns inspired by “wild uninhabited places” such as the Scottish Highlands and Borders and Northumberland – “ancient, dramatic and remote.”

“She has the film photography to prove it, and then the textiles and prints laced with folklore and executed in laborious lino-cutting and hand-painting. This free spirit is already up and running selling at markets, in shops and online. And we are looking forward to welcoming her into Green Grads in the North.”

Green Grads in The North is at Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair (GNCCF), Manchester Victoria Baths from October 17-20. So mark diaries.

Further information about the exciting and innovative BA (Hons) Textiles & Surface Design degree at the Northern School of Art is available HERE