LONDON AUGUST MEETING at Fine Cell Works HQ
Thursday 19th August 6:30pm-8pm
Fine Cell Works HQ, 38 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0RE

We thought we would have the August monthly meetings in a new venue and as a talk. The Craftivist Collective love the work that Fine Cell Work does so we thought this was a great chance for our fellow craftivists and supporters to learn more about this great charity as well as be inspired by their form of craftivism.

Fine Cell Work is a social enterprise set up twelve years ago to teach prison inmates to do high quality needlework in their cells. The work is professional and sells internationally and to organizations such as the V & A Museum and English Heritage. The talk will centre on the work of the organisation and the future of hand stitching in British prisons.

We are limited to 20 people maximum so if you want to book your place (and please dont cancel!) email craftivist-collective [at] hotmail dot com with your name and number.
For more information go to our Facebook group and check out our events section.
Finally, we are encouraging people to bring £5 or whatever they can afford to this session to help fund the printing of our first craftivism zine so please come feeling generous ;p

INVITED BACK TO SHEFFIELD DOCFEST November 2010 after a successful 2009 workshop with it's delegates. Watch this space for more information on its way.


CRAFTIVIST COLLECTIVE STALL AT Whitecross Street Party:


Held in the heart of London's internationally renowned art scene over the weekend of 24th and 25th July 12pm -6pm.

The street will be transformed and includes some the world's most creative living non-conformist artists. For TWO whole days dozens of leading cult, counter culture and contemporary artists will converge upon Whitecross Street and transform the street into a giant canvas. Happily the area famous for its historical creatives, dissidents and mavericks will now see again 'en mass' - Rise of the non- conformists.
The Urban Art exhibition continues until 5th September 2010. Check out Sarah's Mini Protest Banner on a lamppost half way up and Carrie's mosaic on Palestine. They will be raffling off an original Ronnie Wood painting to raise money for SHP (supporting single homeless people).

Come join us and help us raise money to print our first zine in colour by buying our craftivism kits, mosaics and postcard sets.

LONDON MONTHLY MEETING WITH A TWIST:
Thursday 20th May 6pm-8pm
Meeting place: Next to Phloon (the craftivist elephant) on Exhibition Road on the grass where the National History Museum joins The Science Museum), London

Instead of meeting at Royal Festival Hall cafe for this monthly meeting we thought we could go on our first trip to see one of the most beautiful pieces of UK Craftivism around at the moment: Carrie Reichardt and Nick Reynolds mosaiced elephant called Phloon. Here Carrie will talk to us about her inspiration, technique and story of her craftivism background. We will end the meeting by going for a cuppa to discuss help with the first ever UK craftivism zine we are making and general chit-chat:)

Everyone is welcome!If you are nervous of coming for the first time please contact me for my mobile number so you find us x

Phloon is one of over 250 elephants custom painted by artists and some celebrities and placed in central London. It features a mind numbing amount of attention to detail which adds extra depth to the explanation of the plight of the Asian elephant by showing how it is persecuted for its ivory, blown up by landmines and more.
For more information check out www.carriereichardt.co.uk/


WE ALWAYS MEET EVERY 3RD THURSDAY OF THE MONTH
6:30pm-8pm in Royal Festival Hall cafe on London Southbank (unless stated otherwise for special occasions e.g. outings). The cafe's food and drink are ethically produced and sourced locally when possible. We always bring our purple banner so you can find us easily.
As usual: feel free to bring your own craftivism projects to continue with, buy a variety of craftivism kits from us on the night if you like, or just come for a chat over a cuppa. Sometimes we will ask craftivists to speak about their particular project, have the meeting as a craft workshop learning a specific skill or have speakers in to raise awareness of a certain injustice issue.

CRAFTIVIST COLLECITVE TALK AND WORKSHOP AT 'SKETCHBOOK' POP UP SHOP. 10 Newburgh street, LONDON W1 7RN
We will be joining a bustling program of workshops, lectures and discussions hosted by fashion illustration magazine, Sketchbook. There will be cameras on hand as well as a large blank canvas for you to document all the goings on. This week join cover girl Susie Bubble as she explores 'Print Vs Online' publications. Shop for prints, illustrations, cds and magazines and check out the live music on Sundays.
Come to our talk about craftivism, our story, aims and future plans on Monday 5th April 1pm-2pm.
We are also doing a workshop linked to sweatshops used in fashion Thursday 8th April 12pm-1pm


WE ARE IN OUR FIRST EXHIBITION:
The lovely curators at Ink-d Gallery in Brighton invited us to be part of their exhibition 'Renegade Potters and Extreme Craft'.
5 of our mini protest banners are hung in the gallery underneath 5 framed prints of photographs of the mini protest banners in a public space that links to the issue discussed. For example we have a banner on the theme of sweatshops next to the Topshop flagship store on Oxford Circus, capitalism mini banner near Bank station, one on tax outside the Treasury and others.
The exhibition is on until sunday 11th April so please check it out if you can and let us know what you think.
You can also buy a piece on the Ink-d website here
www.ink-d.co.uk/artists/sarah-corbett-the-craftivist-collective/all
We have had 3 banners out of the 5 bought so far and 5 prints.


Thursday 18th February: this months get together 6:30pm-8pm, Royal Festival Hall cafe, Southbank, London:

Ok, so it won't be as exciting as embroidering Vagina's for awareness of Female Genital Mutilation like last month but it should still be fun and chilled.

We have a big event on Saturday 20th Feb in Queen Elizabeth Hall with United Underground 2. Sooo...

We need your help to make our Mini Protest Banner Kits (wrap thread around purple card, fold instruction sheets, put eyelets in fabric etc), cut out dove shapes from card made from elephant poo (but it doesnt smell i promise!) and make some speech bubble badges.

If you are free, we have all the resources you need to help us and we need as much help as possible so please come, get to know us, drink tea and help us prepare for Saturday. And if you are free on saturday please check out this link for more info and invite your friends :)
www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=325732218412&ref=ts


Saturday 20th February 5pm-11pm
You are cordially invited to join the Craftivist Collective in our 'Craftivism Corner' at United Underground conflict event, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank, London

We will have a 'Craftivism Corner' creating 3 projects all on the theme of conflict in Sudan.

There will be of 3 different levels of ability and time restrictions. You can make a speech bubble badge to provoke people to talk to you about conflict, you could write our wishes for the Sudanese people on our Doves (made of elephant poo) that will be hung on a wooden tree in the venue and then real tree in a Central London Park the following week or/and you could make a mini protest banner to put anywhere around London to make people think about our global neighbours in Sudan.

Come and chill out with us. All are welcome, whatever your craft ability and we will have a resident Sudan expert on hand to tell you more about the issues

spread the word please and I hope to see you there :)

for more info check out:
www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/music/gigs-contemporary/tickets/united-underground-50848

Thursday 21st January 2010 Planning and Crafting Meeting:

6:30pm onwards at Royal Festival Hall Cafe on London Southbank.
Our January planning meeting is open to anyone who is passionate about making the world a better place and trying to help its potential by doing fun crafty activism (craft+activism = craftivism!)
We hope this meeting will include people sipping fairtrade tea, embroidering a 'Vajayjay' whilst the Shoreditch Sisters explain how this is helping their campaign and also everyone discussing ideas and plans for what the Craftivist Collective will be doing in 2010
people of all abilities and knowledge are welcome, we just want people to bring passion
all craft resources will be provided but if you want to bring any fabric, thread, needles, scissors etc please do

Thursday 17th December planning meetings:
6:30pm-7:30pm in Royal Festival Hall cafe on London Southbank. We always bring our purple banner so you cant miss us :) This meeting will be focusing on finishing our first Craftivist Collective zine to try and distribute in early next year. We will also discuss having a 1 year anniversary/ official launch party next year for the group to increase awareness of us, our message and our achievements so far. Finally we have about 3 projects in the pipeline to complete ("Don't keep calm and carry on..." poster, "Carbon Criminal" poster, mini sweatshop scrolls) and a few ideas to disucss further (Art Activism in Time Out's First Thursdays gallery late openings, sweatshop masks for mannequins in unethical shop windows and others).

Wednesday 16th December Oxfam Creative Campaigning workshop
7pm - 10pm Oxfam Campaigns Office, 232 Vauxhall Road. London SW1X 9SE
We have been invited along with 2 other creative activist groups (Shoreditch Sisters and John Hogget's street theatre) to do a creative workshop with 30 Oxfam activists and then enjoy the Oxfam Christmas party. If you want to join this workshop and party contact Lucy on LAitkenRead@oxfam.org.uk


Saturday 5th December London:
The Wave climate change demonstration.
We will be attending the Wave demonstration as a group with our purple banner on its 2 polls and leaving craft projects around central London on that day on the theme of climate change.


Saturday and Sunday 20-22 November 2009 Manchester:
People and Planet have invited us to their Shared Planet weekend for hundreds of young people from all over the UK. The weekend 20-22 Nov 2009 is full of inspiring speakers, practical and informative workshops, debates, films, stalls and fun. Learn skills, find positive solutions and share ideas for a just and sustainable future for our generation. This year its at Mancheser University. We will be doing 2 sessions on what craftivism is and showing students what they could do as another way to campaign.


Thursday November 19th planning meetings:
6:30pm-7:30pm in Royal Festival Hall cafe on London Southbank. We always bring our purple banner so you cant miss us :) This meeting will be discussing plans for the Wave climate change march in London as well as our Zine, roles for core members and future projects.

Saturday 14th November London:
2-5pm clock project at the Old Queen's Head pub in Angel, London.
We will be attending the Craft Guerrillas monthly 'crafternoon' and having our own area to make clocks out of second hand books on the theme of the end of the world by environmental issues. The aim is to make the clocks to put in cafes and public places with petitions on climate change around them for people to sign in time for the Copenhagen conference which is our last chance to put climate change as a priority by world leaders.


Saturday 7th November Sheffield:
Sheffield DocFest. Saturday 7th November 4-6pm. We will be making Mini Protest Banners with some political film makers as part of their networking session. The banners with be on the theme of the politics of their films and we will put them around Sheffield at the end. Check out info here:
sheffdocfest.com/sessions/view/1191

Saturday 3rd October London 12-2pm:
Protest Banner Making workshop by the Craftivist Collective
Come join us to spend 2 hours on a saturday afternoon chilling out in a farm surrounded by plants and animals whilst chatting to like-minded people and creating your own mini protest banners on environmental issues to put up around the farm... what more could you want to?!

At Spitalfields City Farm, Buxton Street, London, E1 5AR
in collaboration with the Farm's 3Rs Arts n Crafts group
www.spitalfieldscityfarm.org
Think of a word, a fact, a quote, a symbol that makes you stop, stand back and think about the world slightly differently if only for a moment. Then, get out a needle and thread and cross stitch this inspiration onto a scrap of material. Tie it onto a lamp-post, walk on and let nature take its course.
Allow yourself to feel free to expose the scandal of global poverty, and human rights injustices though the power of craft and public art. As a group and individuals Craftivists do this through provocative, non-violent creative actions.

Saturday 18th July 2009 London Southbank 5pm-11pm
A rooftop party at the Southbank Centre, Queen Elizabeth Hall
£5 all day.
Tickets: www.southbankcentre.co.uk/unitedundergound
Southbank Centre Ticket Office 0871 663 2538
The Craftivist Collective have been asked to have a 'craftivism corner' at the event where we do campaign projects on the theme of corruption. We will be making origami cranes (1000 crane birds represent peace) out of articles on conflict and words people have wrote about what their views on corruption are. We will also be making mini protest banners on this theme and speech bubble badges to make people think and ask questions about corruption.

It is hosted by Ctrl.Alt.Shift, British Underground, Southbank Centre and actor and musician Riz Ahmed/ Riz MC, United Underground is a unique mix of cutting-edge street culture, music, artwork, fanzines and film set against a backdrop of new-school activism.
What’s happening where?
On The Roof will be some of London’s hotly tipped live acts, and best-loved underground club nights. We will also present an impressive lineup of speakers from across the cultural and campaigning spectrum, talking activism and their way of doing it – from film director Peter Kosminsky, gay rights campaigners from Baghdad, to Plane Stupid.
The Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall will showcase a buzzing lineup of new short film talent gathered by Film London talent spotters, plus feature films from Andy Serkis and Eran Creevey in the Purcell Room. Also in the Front Room, Ctrl.Alt.Shift will be putting together a fanzine, in real time, documenting the night – with contributions from punters (pics taken on your phone, blogs, poetry) as well as pre-sourced contributions from activists and artists.