In follow up to artist Becca Poremba's article on her experience with the recent workshops for the Ad Gefrin Design Challenge, I caught up with Deborah Elliott who is a Project Support Officer at the Rural Design Centre Innovation Project for Advance Northumberland to find out next steps in the decision making of the shortlisted artist.
Deborah told us...
The next step in the timeline for the project is the submission date of 1st Dec.
This is the date which all participants will send in their video submission - this could be a hand-held selfie style video explaining what their product is, or be a film with cutaways and subtitles - it's up to the participant how they want to do it.
These will then be reviewed by the RDCIP team along with the Ad Gefrin team and shortlisted. The decision making panel will be made up of Eileen Ferguson, Chris Ferguson, Alan Ferguson and Claire Byers from Ad Gefrin with assistance from Nick Devitt (RDCIP).
I asked Deborah what the panel will be looking for...
They'll be looking for products that capture the essence of Northumbrian culture, and that are also environmentally sustainable and unique. Because the shop layout at the Ad Gefrin visitor centre is not designed yet, it means that there are no major constraints with regards to size, shape, or weight for products, so participants don't have to make their items fit into the space.
The space will be created around them. (having said that, as they could be sold online then shipping would need to be taken into consideration at some point).
The shortlist will be announced on 17th Dec.
After that there will be an event at our offices at The Rivergreen Centre in Stannington on Jan 12th for those short listers to pitch face to face and a bit of a celebration after that as the winner is announced. We will be inviting all participants to the celebration event to celebrate all of their hard work.
We are really looking forward to seeing the creativity unfold with the Ad Gefrin project.
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If you would like to tell us about your experience with your own artistic practise please email hello@culturenorthumberland.co.uk