News & Notices

TEG Members: Shape TEG’s Future!

As mentioned in our recent e-newsletter, TEG has been working over the past year on a review of our membership categories.

The two new categories proposed are:

• Education and Supporters – for those in education, retired or unwaged
• Freelance and Volunteer led Organisations – for freelancers and organisations run solely by volunteers

These new categories replace our existing Individual membership category and are designed to widen access to TEG and increase our network.

On 8 March 2021, current TEG members who are eligible to take part in the confirmatory vote will receive an email with a link to the voting form.

The vote will be open from 8 – 22 March 2021. We ask you to cast your vote as soon as you can. Votes submitted after 22 March 2021 will not be counted.

If a majority of participants confirm they would like these categories introduced, they will be available to those joining TEG from April 2021 onwards and the current Individual category will be phased out.

The vote will only take 2 minutes of your time and you will be helping to shape TEG’s future.

How changes would affect current members:

Individual members: As our membership renewals take place throughout the year, depending when a membership was started, current Individual members will be contacted in advance to confirm which category their membership should be transferred to upon their next renewal date.

Organisation members: For those who are currently an Organisation member and are solely run by volunteers, in due course please contact us to discuss transferral to the Freelance and Volunteer led Organisation membership upon your next renewal date.

Results will be announced in TEG’s April newsletter.

Fashion, Fantasy and Collaboration: The Legacy of Bill Gibb

Online Symposium

Saturday 20 March 2021, 10.30am – 2.30pm

Aberdeen Art Gallery holds an unparalleled archive of drawings, patterns and outfits by internationally celebrated fashion designer Bill Gibb (1943-1988). Born in New Pitsligo, Aberdeenshire, and educated at Fraserburgh Academy, Gibb attended Central St Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art, where fellow students included Zandra Rhodes and Ossie Clark.

Gibb collaborated closely with tailors, knitters and textile designers to create fantastical garments which were adored by celebrities such as Twiggy, Bianca Jagger and Elizabeth Taylor.

This online symposium celebrates Gibb’s legacy, his innovative approaches to design, collaboration and manufacture, and his relationship with the north-east of Scotland.

Chaired by Josie Steed and Hilary Nicoll of Gray’s School of Art at Robert Gordon University, and with a keynote address by Christine Rew, Art Gallery & Museums Manager, this is a fantastic opportunity to explore Gibb’s remarkable legacy through fascinating presentations by fashion writers, curators and academics:

Christine Rew: Disciplined Flamboyance  
Christine Rew, Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums Manager, is a decorative arts specialist who has curated several contemporary craft, jewellery and fashion exhibitions including ‘Bill Gibb’ in 1990 and ‘Bill Gibb – the Golden Boy of British Fashion’ in 2003, the year that would have marked the designer’s 60th birthday.
Bill Gibb’s Moment in Time: A Web of Memory Association 
NJ Stevenson is a fashion curator and writer, lecturer in cultural and historical studies and a member of the Centre for Fashion Curation at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. In 2008 she curated ‘Billy: Bill Gibb’s Moment in Time’ at the Fashion and Textile Museum.

Gibb as storyteller, dreamer… 
Dr Marie McLoughlin is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton, where she teaches Historical and Critical Studies to Fashion students. She trained as a designer at St Martin’s School of Art shortly after Bill Gibb. Dr McLoughlin is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton, where she teaches Historical and Critical Studies to Fashion students.
THE SHOW MUST GO ON: Was fashion designer Bill Gibb the greatest showman? 
Professor Iain R Webb is a fashion writer, curator and academic. He is a research professor at Kingston School of Art and associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins and Bath Spa University. He has been fashion editor of BLITZ, The Evening Standard, Harpers & Queen, The Times and Elle. His publications include ‘Bill Gibb – Fashion and Fantasy’.

Bill Gibb and the Bay City Rollers: Putting the shang a lang in sustainable fashion 
Lynn Wilson is a textile designer and a circular economy business model expert. For the past 25 years, Lynn has brought a design perspective to the development of products and delivery of services in diverse locations including a high-security prison in Scotland to the Kalahari Desert, Botswana. Lynn is currently a PhD researcher at the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow

From Gibb to Gucci: how folklore fashions comfort in turbulent times 
Karen Cross studied textile design at Heriot-Watt University and worked as knitwear and jersey wear designer for fashion brands in London. She is now Academic Strategic Lead for Fashion Management, Events, Tourism and Hospitality in the School of Creative and Cultural Business, Robert Gordon University and leads the BA(Hons) and MSc Fashion Management courses there. Her research interests focus on how fashion and clothing can contribute to the psychosocial well-being of women; traditional Scottish textiles; and sustainable practices in fashion and textiles.
Constructing a digital legacy: an analysis of user-generated imagery denoting the work of Bill Gibb on Instagram 
Dr Madeleine Marcella-Hood is a lecturer within the School of Creative and Cultural Business at Robert Gordon University. She is head of Stage 1 BA (Hons) Fashion Management and teaches a range of subjects including fashion business, communication and creative project management.

Professor Peter Reid teaches at the School of Creative and Cultural Business, Robert Gordon University. His work is centred around cultural heritage with a strong emphasis on the narratives of the north and north-east of Scotland.

Christina Stewart is the Course Leader of Digital Marketing BA (Hons) at Robert Gordon University. She lectures in digital marketing and fashion management, including digital marketing strategy, brand management, fashion buying and trend forecasting.

The Bill Gibb Line 
Originally from Fraserburgh, Shane Strachan is a writer and performer based in Aberdeen. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Aberdeen and he was awarded a 2018 Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship from the Scottish Book Trust for his creative work responding to the legacy of Bill Gibb. Originally commissioned for Look Again 2019, ‘The Bill Gibb Line’ was a spoken-word film and exhibition inspired by the life and career of Bill Gibb and was exhibited in Aberdeen Art Gallery throughout 2020

The Symposium features a specially-recorded conversation with Bill Gibb’s sisters Patsy, Janet and Marlyn.

Thomas Hardy Exhibition Design Tender for Wessex Museums

Wessex Museums requires an exhibition design company for a major exhibition on the life and work of Thomas Hardy, which will open simultaneously in all four partner museum sites in May 2022. The designers will collaborate with the Project Curator on the design and delivery of the exhibition, as well as management of any external contractors and the exhibition construction.

The contract specification and information on how to submit a tender can be found via the link below:

https://procontract.due-north.com/Advert?advertId=1d249da5-fc69-eb11-8108-005056b64545&p=696a9836-1895-e511-8105-000c29c9ba21

This procurement is through BCP Council on behalf of Wessex Museums. The deadline for tender submissions is 10 March 2021.

Request for Proposals for Online Exhibition Development

Founded in 2013, Journey to Justice (JtoJ) was constituted as an alliance of individuals and organisations, united in their aim of inspiring people to take action for human rights in the face of increasing inequalities. To date we have cross community partners in 17 English cities, 400 members and 50 volunteers.

When we launched, we identified the UK as a place of increasing income inequality with many citizens feeling powerless and disconnected while the concept of human rights was under attack. We felt there was a lack of public memory about past struggles in our communities for social and justice and human rights.

We aimed – through combining teaching less-told stories of ‘ordinary’ people who have taken action for social justice, the role of the arts in human rights and understanding social change – to galvanise people to take action in their own journeys to justice, from personal to global.  Find out more about our impact at https://journeytojustice.org.uk/impact/

As a powerful means of achieving our mission, our first project was a multi-media travelling exhibition focused on the US civil rights movement, its links with the UK and its wider impact.

This travelling exhibition programme has visited 15 towns and cities (with 2 others booked) and has made a tremendous impact. Over 180,000 people have visited the exhibition and an additional 7,000 have participated in our arts, education and training events since 2015.

Our travelling exhibition launched in April 2015 and we now seek a digital partner to help us create an online experience, a newly curated interactive version of the exhibition: https://journeytojustice.org.uk/the-exhibition/

For a copy of the RFP email:  carrie@journeytojustice.org.uk    Thank you

Touring Exhibitions in a Socially Distant environment

During this challenging time we at Warren Elsmore Ltd have been keeping in touch with all of our customers and suppliers on a regular basis. We’ve been working together to see what route there is for our sector, back to some semblance of normality. We know that this crisis will pass – but when restrictions are eased we also know that we must maintain a safe environment for both our staff and visitors.

Talking about the situation over the last couple of weeks, it became apparent that our experience in both touring exhibitions and extremely large events could be put to good use. Whilst the build of a 30,000 square meter exhibition space might not seem relatable to a local museum – in these strange times, the logistic challenges are not too dissimilar.

As we face these all challenges together it would be wrong not to share whatever we can, so I’ve written a white paper on ‘Social Distancing in Touring Exhibitions’. This documents not only the new procedures we as a company are putting into place – but also best practise guidance we’ve gathered from around the sector. It’s available now as a free download from the link below:

Download the white paper – Social Distancing in Touring Exhibitions

Please do feel free to distribute this within your organisation if you wish. Similarly, if you have extra materials we can add to this, or any other comments – we’d love to hear those as well. Please email me and I will make sure to keep the document updated.

2020 is going to be a tough year for us all, but we will get through it. Please stay safe,

Warren

The Tiger Who Came to Tea – a facsimile exhibition from Seven Stories

We are looking for tour partners for our new Small Stories exhibition

Our first exhibition celebrates Judith Kerr’s classic title The Tiger Who Came to Tea.  Due to the success of  the pilot version, currently touring National Trust properties around the UK, we have opened a second Tiger tour which has two remaining slots March/April and May/June 2022

The exhibition consists of:

– 10 framed pieces of facsimile artwork from the book,
– a reproduction of Sophie’s kitchen for little visitors to play in, complete with its own cuddly 5ft Tiger!
– 3 interpretation panels
– copies of the book
– bespoke dress up
– toys

The hire fee is £4,000 +VAT for a two month loan.

The exhibition has enjoyed tremendous success at all of the venues it’s toured to thus far, visitor numbers are up – so much so that Quarry Bank had a 20,000 visitor increase from the same period last year.

Visitors have been on social media praising the exhibition:

‘More events like the tiger who came to tea for the families, linked to affordable keep sakes that are relevant to the theme’.

‘Great little exhibition for my two, and clearly very popular’

For this second tour, we will need to fill all of the available slots before we can recommission the creation of a brand new Tiger, set and props for this second round of the tour.

Each slot includes a school holiday period

An Update to Our Community- COVID-19

Dear Colleagues,

Like all of you, the Touring Exhibitions Group have been following the challenging and changeable news regarding the global Covid-19 and Coronavirus crisis.

In light of current government advice and the likely long-term effects, we have decided to postpone the TEG Marketplace and Seminar that were due to take place on 30 April and 1 May 2020.

We are looking at options for holding the Seminar in October and another two-day event, including the Marketplace, in spring 2021. We are discussing this with our hosts at People’s History Museum in Manchester. If you have already purchased tickets, they will be valid for the re-arranged events and in support of TEG and our community, we hope you will by happy to attend on the rescheduled dates. Should this not be possible, we will of course offer refunds. Please bear with us for now, while we make new arrangements.

We understand that calling off the events is going to cause disappointment and disruption but I am sure that you understand why we have opted to do so. We will keep you informed about new arrangements for the events as soon as we have information but in the meantime, If you have any questions please direct them to Andrew Deathe, TEG Coordinator.

Nicola Coleby, TEG Chair and the TEG Committee