Shortlist announced for the 2024 Brookfield Properties Craft Award

Brookfield Properties, in partnership with Crafts Council, has announced the makers nominated for this prestigious annual prize.

Nominated for the 2024 edition are:

Halima Cassell (represented at Collect 2024 by Joanna Bird Contemporary Collections, England)

Steven Edwards (represented at Collect 2024 by Vessel Gallery, England)

Fung + Bedford (represented at Collect 2024 by Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust, England)

Joshua Kerley and Guy Marshall-Brown (represented at Collect 2024 by Bullseye Projects, USA)

Naomi Mcintosh (represented at Collect 2024 by Ruup & Form, England)

Marking the fifth anniversary of the prize this year, the Brookfield Properties Craft Award is presented to a maker who has displayed significant technique, narrative, and vision throughout their craft practice. Shortlisted makers are selected from those exhibiting at Collect presented yearly by Crafts Council – the leading international fair for contemporary craft and design which brings together 40 exhibiting galleries and showcases more than 400 international artists and makers.

The award winner will be announced on 28 February 2024 during a private ceremony at Collect. The winner will receive a prize package equivalent to £65,000, championing their career in craft as well as recognising the gallery that represents them.

As part of the prize package, Brookfield Properties will acquire work/s from the winning artist, which are later generously donated to Crafts Council Collection, the national collection for contemporary craft, ensuring they can be enjoyed by all for generations to come.

Later this year, a solo exhibition of these works will be presented by Crafts Council during the summer of 2024 across two Brookfield Properties locations, open to the public to visit for free. The solo exhibition will feature alongside a one-off group show, supported by London EC BID, a business improvement district working to promote and enhance the Eastern City, a unique part of the City of London.

Halima Cassell, who graced the cover of Crafts magazine in Autumn 2021, handcrafts complex three-dimensional sculptures across multiple media, including clay, stone, concrete, jesmonite, marble, wood, iron, bronze, and glass. Represented by Joanna Bird Contemporary Collections at Collect 2024, Cassell's work embraces an interplay of surface, cultivating dynamic, yet playful techniques - alongside a profound development of architectural geometry and nature-inspired patterns.

Steven Edwards is a Crafts Council Directory maker whose work explores the language and physicality of clay. Edwards’ practice centres on process-led making and traditional techniques to stimulate chance outcomes. Represented by Vessel Gallery at Collect 2024, Edwards has previously exhibited at British Ceramics Biennial, London Craft Week and London Design Festival.

Also, members of Crafts Council’s maker Directory, Sussex-based duo Angela Fung and Ashley Bedford form the multidisciplinary design studio Fung+Bedford. Exhibited by Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust at Collect 2024, they combine architectural experience, jewellers’ fine eye and origami folding techniques as well being self-taught in origami, to which they take an abstract yet modern approach. Combining these distinct fields, they create large-scale paper installations and sculptures for commercial and interiors spaces.

London-based glass maker and designer Joshua Kerley champions kiln-formed glass. At Collect 2024, Kerley is collaborating with emerging glass artist Guy Marshall-Brown to display works together with gallery Bullseye Projects. The partnership brings Kerley’s expertise in Pate de Verre together with Marshall-Brown’s work in 3D printing and prototyping, producing an exciting body of new sculptural work.

Naomi Mcintosh, represented by Ruup & Form at Collect 2024, trained in architecture but transitioned into a career in jewellery-making and interdisciplinary design. Currently practicing from Cairngorms National Park in Scotland, Mcintosh draws on her expansive surrounding landscape to create a diverse range of sculptures, objects, and jewellery. Working primarily with wood, she centres varying colour, form, and scale in her practice, to create immersive installations.

Launched in 2020, Brookfield Properties Craft Award’s past winners include Matt Smith (Cynthia Corbett Gallery), Anna Ray (House on Mars), Christian Ovonlen (Intoart) and Alice Kettle (Candida Stevens Gallery). "We are proud to have entered our fifth year of collaborating with Crafts Council and Collect. We are delighted to extend this partnership with the valuable support of EC BID to further celebrate 20 years of artistry at Collect 2024,” says Saff Williams, Curatorial Director for Brookfield Properties, Europe. "We are committed to showcasing the best in British craft, through free and accessible exhibitions for the public, supporting makers in their creative process as well as the arts professionals who support them.”

In celebration of the enduring partnership between Brookfield Properties and Crafts Council, a commemorative group exhibition, 5&20, will be presented alongside the 2024 Brookfield Properties Craft Award winner’s solo show, supported with funding from the London EC Bid.

Featuring twenty works from Crafts Council Collection, five of which will be a seminal work of the previous recipients of Brookfield Properties Craft Award, the show is intended to show the evolving dialogue around contemporary craft that has emerged from the partnership.