Free Range Art & Design Show is Europe’s largest Graduate Art & Design Show, held at the Old Truman Brewery for 2 month from June 4th to July 26th.
Providing new graduates with a real opportunity to engage with the public, future clients and potential employers, Free Range is also the perfect platform for networking and being involved in East London’s creative hub.
A key fixture in the creative industry calendar, Free Range is a “must attend” to discover new talents and spot the next Damien Hirst, whilst experiencing a vibrant and always renewed artistic offering during its 2 month residency.
Tamsin O’Hanlon is the director of Free Range and she has been there since the millennium; she has a fantastic eye for spotting new talents, and she is a real expert of the initiative.
FADwebsite caught up with Tamsin while she was organising freerange 2010 and she kindly gave us half an hour to ask some questions
How did it all start ?
I first started working at the Truman Brewery while still at college I was at LCC doing a Graphics degree.
I worked in the bar It was very quite around here – however there where some shows/parties I think Stafforshire,Ravensbourne ,Kingston and Nottingham Trent had shows around 98.
Then one day the landlord of Truman Brewery asked me If I’d like to help with organising and promoting these events and I started to organise things with his then Girlfriend LuLu Kennedy (Fashion East fame). We worked together for 6months until she decide to concentrate on Fashion East.
Things started to grow organically more colleges became interested and eventually I decided to put some more structure on the events and look more seriously at the regeneration possibilities for the area –
So in 2001 we launched the first free range.
Why Did you do It?
One of the main reasons I started was that I noticed the complete lack of connection between the new creative industries starting to form in TheTruman brewery/wider shoreditch/hackney area and Students.
There seemed to be a feeling that the students weren’t worth the effort to track down etc So I decided to help colleges/students show what they where capable of in a location that would be easy for the industry to visit
Why has It been a success ?
We provide a space and infrastructure for the colleges to put on their shows – the success has been down to the creative talent form the colleges and their promotional activities within the framework we have implemented. We always insisted from the very beginning that the colleges/students had to invite industry. Free Range has always been for graduate shows and the grassroots promotion has been the key to its success we do supply promotional support and infrastructure but its very much down to the participants that Free Range is such a success
How has It changed?
Every year is different, being a regeneration project principally the spaces we have been allocated have changed every year. However we have always had a good growth projection and every year we have grown, now we have more than 3,000 students from over 50 courses from all over the UK in more than 400,000 sq feet of exhibition space.
We have also added new strands to the initial art and design strands – we now have interiors, fashion , photography and at the end of the 8 weeks a mixed discipline week of shows and next year we may have a moving image week and maybe some talks and seminars.
Who has stayed with you the last ten years ?
Well the design agency Insect has stayed with us they created our corporate Identity at the beginning was Luke and Paul but while Paul has gone on to become a well known artist Luke has carried on the design side of the partnership.
Obviously the Truman Brewery has kept supporting us over the last ten years and are still pushing us to dream even bigger dreams.
And finally the following Colleges/Universities have exhibited with us almost every year; University of Westminster, Swansea Institute, Middlesex University, UCA Maidstone, Nottingham Trent University and Arts University College Bournemouth.
How have you worked with your sponsors ?
We have always had a great relationship with sponsors and we have tended to work with brands who share the wider ethos of the Truman Brewery of Independence -and this year we are really happy to have Perrier as the main sponsor.
What Is New this Year ?
This year we have Fashion Week with 3 days of catwalks .
The Free Range Awards, The best of Free Range 2010 available in a collectible print set, selected by a panel of industry experts and for sale Via CultureLabel.
New Blood: D&AD creative new talents’ show has moved to Free Range for the first time (4th week) And finally the 2nd Year Of Interiors Week.
What do you do online?
We have our website which has all the info on the events and a diary plus every student gets a free profile page which we have been running for the last ten years.
Ok finally any plans For The future what does the next ten years hold ?
Well this year we have two art schools from abroad …. and we plan to invite more ,the British Higher School of Art and Design Moscow and I’m trying to find space for Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok are going to be exhibiting here and we also have schools from India, Japan, Russia and Europe visiting Free Range, having identified Free Range as the best place to spot the latest trends.
We are also Investigating the possibility of setting up an Incubator
It’s such early days so not a lot to mention at the moment but we’d like to set up a year round incubator programme which may just end up with the name ‘The Coop’ we have been in discussions with The Arts Council , the LDA and some other interested parties.
