Marking International Women’s Day on March 8th, LOEWE introduces the Women in Craft campaign: celebration of craftswomen around the world.
The campaign centers on a social activation that aims to share the skill and innovation of women in craft far and wide. Designed to spread organically, the project invites three friends of the LOEWE FOUNDATION working at the forefront of their fields to initiate a chain of celebration bringing visibility to craftswomen across the globe using the hashtag #WomenInCraft. Curator Hyeyoung Cho, artist Celia Pym, and architect Patricia Urquiola, will each introduce three women in craft they admire using LOEWE platforms and their own, encouraging their recommended artists to post recommendations in turn—a sprawling concept devised in line with LOEWE FOUNDATION’s perennial mission: to support and spotlight the world of craft.
Hyeyoung Cho is an artist, curator and consultant. Since 2017 she has worked with the LOEWE Craft Prize as the Asian promoter (covering Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea), and has been part of the Expert Panel for the LOEWE Craft Prize since 2020. Cho nominates Korean artist Dayhe Jeong, who majored in sculpture before developing a practice in traditional fiber craft, specializing in horsehair; British multidisciplinary artist Caroline Broadhead, whose jewelry, furniture, textiles and installations explore the complex interactions between objects and bodies; and Ann Hamilton, an American visual artist specializing in installations and performance collaborations that enact intimacy, tactility and social history on a vast scale.
Celia Pym is a London-based artist whose intricate textiles work focuses on ideas of damage and repair. In 2017 she was shortlisted for the inaugural LOEWE Craft Prize. Pym nominates British artist Freddie Robins, who challenges the idea of knitting as a benign or passive activity with her subversive textile pieces; Swedish mixed media jeweler Lina Peterson, whose brightly colored works make use of unusual materials, including wood; and Rachael Matthews, a textiles artist and teacher whose research and writing has significantly shaped the contemporary world of knitting.
Patricia Urquiola is a Spanish architect, industrial designer and art director. She has previously served as a jury member for the LOEWE Craft Prize. Urquiola nominates Italian multimedia artist Paola Pivi, whose enigmatic, colorful works playfully upend the expected; Dutch furniture and product designer Linde Freya Tangelder who founded design studio Destroyers/Builders, where sculptural gesture meets tactile surfaces and startling materials; and British multidisciplinary designer Bethan Laura Wood, who renders everyday objects fantastical, and fuses the artisanal with investigations into sustainability against a backdrop of mass consumption.