The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York is teaming up with the Swiss watchmaker Vacheron Constantin to launch a residency for artists whose practices incorporate craft or artisanal supplies and methods. The residency, formally launched on 6 June, will final 18 months and permit artists to spend time with the collections and workers of the Met, in addition to the grasp artisans at Vacheron Constantin’s Geneva headquarters.
The three inaugural artists participating within the Artisan Residency initiative are the US furniture-maker Aspen Golann, the Egyptian ceramic artist Ibrahim Mentioned and the British Italian jewelry designer Pleasure Harvey. The programme’s inaugural run will culminate in October 2026, when the artists will present new work on the Met.
“This initiative embodies our mutual dedication to creative innovation and cultural dialogue,” Max Hollein, the director and chief government of the Met, stated in a press release, including that the chosen artists “are remarkably expert practitioners who breathe new life into conventional methods”.
The nice corridor on the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork Photograph: Brett Beyer
Golann, who is predicated in New Hampshire and teaches on the Rhode Island College of Design, is skilled in historic US furniture-making practices spanning the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. She employs these methods to foreground points associated to labour, gender and energy in a follow that features drawings, handheld practical objects and furnishings.
Mentioned comes from a household of ceramicists in Fustat, Egypt, and first discovered pottery from his father. His work reinterprets types and methods from historic Egyptian ceramic vessels, tailored with a recent and at occasions even futuristic sculptural sensibility.
Skilled as a chemist, Harvey pivoted careers and devoted herself to jewellery-making practically a decade in the past. In 2021, she and Marco Rossi based the Rimini-based studio La Luce, whose supplies are all sustainably sourced; the gold and silver they use is 100% fair-mined, they usually solely make use of traceable gems and diamonds.
“On the Met, we imagine deeply within the energy of artwork to ignite curiosity and, on the similar time, to redefine creative and cultural boundaries,” Heidi Holder, the museum’s chair of training, stated in a press release. “This residency is a testomony to that perception, providing the artisans entry to our assortment, scholarly assets and the experience of Met scientists, curators, educators and workers to tell, encourage and assist the reimagining of conventional craft information and methods for the subsequent generations.”
