Crafting Ourselves

In collaboration with Ugly Duck, the Courtauld Institute of Art's LGBTQIA+ Society is staging a free festival of LGBTQIA+ craft, entitled ‘Crafting Ourselves’! The show will be opening at Ugly Duck (49 Tanner Street, London, SE1 3PL) on Friday 18th February at 6-9PM and will be open both Saturday and Sunday at 9AM-6PM.



For the festival’s exhibition, the Courtauld LGBTQIA+ Society’s Committee are looking to select around ten artworks, which will be exhibited amongst a handful of works from the Committee members’ collections. Please send us your submissions by January 31st, using this form - bit.ly/3Iaujxq

Submissions are open to everyone—whether you've long been at your sewing machine making elaborate drag looks, or only recently picked up a crochet hook! We are particularly keen to further marginalised perspectives by selecting a broad range of LGBTQIA+ artists whose identities are often underrepresented, such as artists with neurodivergencies and disabilities.

The works you submit could be textile works, needlecrafts, zines, pottery, ceramics, collages, papercrafts, beadwork or anything else that you feel contributes to 'crafting' LGBTQIA+ identities and communities. As well as completed works, we are also accepting proposals for works that will be completed by early February.

The Courtauld LGBTQIA+ Society is an intersectional space and platform for students to discuss issues that are important to our queer, trans and intersex lives. Anyone can come and enjoy our wide range of events – from talks held by professional queer curators to less formal Queer Art Show and Tell evenings, to even less formal wine-fuelled socials and film screenings. The society has been going for five years now and we can’t wait to welcome you to this supportive community!

Ugly Duck is a London based arts organisation that supports under-represented voices and emerging artists. Established in August 2012, their programme enables makers, community groups, professionals and the public to come together around unique cultural experiences and curated events. They have converted a beautiful empty Victorian warehouse in SE1 into a busy creative space that became, and still is, the home to countless rising artists.