Little Black Book of Art

Fine Cell Work is a charity working with prisons across the country teaching inmates how to embroider and sew.

In 2007, Fine Cell Work was invited to create a new commission by Sue Prichard, textiles curator at the V&A as part of a forthcoming exhibition entitled ‘Quilts 1700 – 2010‘, which will explore 300 years of British quilt making and runs from 20 March – 4 July 2010.

The quilt, which has taken over a year and a half to create by HMP Wandsworth’s all-male quilting group, shows the architectural structure of the prison broken down into cells, and embroidered with words and images to do with prison life. The quilt will be on display along with a documentary film, featuring interviews with the inmates who worked on the quilt over that time.

To show at the V&A is a thrilling opportunity, and one which will reveal the prisoners’ outstanding work, and something of their world, to a wider public than ever before.

The second quilt of interest in the exhibition is entitled ‘Signature Quilt’, and has been created for by the prisoners of HMP Bullingdon.

It is a glorious traditional ‘turkey red and white star’ design, which has been signed by 72 important artistic figures from the art and design world. The signatures were achieved by sending out small pieces of white fabric along with a red fabric pen to selected artists and designers, which were then returned to the prisoners. It will be auctioned on 25 March 2010 at the V&A to raise funds for Fine Cell Work.

These quilts have been made possible with the support of The Friends of the V&A . Threads have been supplied by Coats Crafts UK.

“I love this kind of work, and I think when you do something with love it is better in the end.” Inmate HMP Cookham Wood

For more information, please click HERE.

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On Wednesday 19 May between 14.00-15.30pm there is a Fine Cell Work Lecture at the V&A entitled ‘Needlework in Prisons‘. Katy Emck, Director of Fine Cell Work, will examine the charity’s history and crucial contribution to inmates’ rehabilitation.

Tickets cost £12 (including tea and coffee). To book call 020 7942 2277.

Last weekend I attended a great party in London hosted by a group calling themselves Creatives Against Poverty.

Creatives Against Poverty is a coalition of journalists and creatives who donate their skills for social impact and who seek to help increase awareness of issues close to their hearts.

For the last two years, Creatives Against Poverty have been working with a number of NGO’s who’s causes include helping street kids in Mumbai, child sorcery victims in Congo and war orphans in Sri Lanka.

This particular event was hosted by Fatima Naim and her boyfriend, in a beautiful penthouse flat near Old Street. The evening was devised to get young professionals together to meet, talk, bounce ideas of one another and to discuss how they can make an impact – even on a small level. Fatima herself, is both a journalist and photographer and had a controversial photo exhibition on display, which was both poetic and political. The photos depicted images smuggled out of Xinjiang, China, where a brutal crackdown on Muslim Uighurs betrays a sinister government agenda to crush a culture they cannot comprehend.

I also met half Congolese and half French, Tatiana Giraud who lives in London and works in finance. Tatiana is an incredibly inspiring young woman who set up a charitable trust helping victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic Congo.

Tatiana explained that she set up her trust having been moved to act after watching a film highlighting the horrors of rape in war-torn DRC. She began her quest by asking her family for more information about what was happening in her home country, but they were unable to give her answers. Following further research, Tatiana was shocked to discover the amount of women suffering from human rights abuses as a result of on-going military conflict in certain parts of the country.

She first began by began by showing a group of 25 of her friends the film she had seen. Seeing their positive response, Tatiana then hired a venue and invited more people to come and see the film, charging them a fee which she put aside to help these women from the DRC. The success of that initial film showing spurned her on to set up a separate bank account for the trust and do hold more events to raise the profile of these women’s plight. The foundation is now going from strength to strength – for more information, please visit: www.tatianagiraudfoundation.org

Along with displays of stories and photographs of the various plights, the Creatives Against Poverty party provided a mixture of delectable Neapolitan and Turkish food during the evening, which we all tucked into with glee.

Group members who work in fashion organised a designer sample sale with donated pieces from Moschino, Alexander McQueen, Emanuel Ungaro, Armani, Gucci and YSL with proceeds going to different causes. A great evening was had by all. If you are interested in finding out more about Creatives Against Poverty events, you can find the group on Facebook.

Creatives Against Poverty supports the following:

1. Mobile phones into scholarships. On our mentoring program, a girl has decided to collect and recycle mobile phones to create Congolese kids scholarships. Please hand in your old cell phones. Why? Read about how the need for coltan used in mobile phones is fuelling the conflict in Congo. (ARTCLE)

2. We work with All for Africa, an NGO in NYC to build a positive conversation around African issues by highlighting innovative approaches to poverty: www.allforafrica.org/category/experts/

3. We work with the Georges Malaika Foundation in Congo, caring for their kids, awareness and funds for their school project: www.gmalaikaf.org

4. In Mumbai we work with MESCO : www.mescotrust.org

5. In Sri Lanka we work with YPF : www.youthforlanka.org

For more info get in touch with Fatima Najm at fatimazn@yahoo.com or Cristina Pittelli cristinapittelli@hotmail.com.