Ceramic doorknobs, mantelpieces, collaged tiles, printed fabrics. Even lights made from the ‘Granby Rock’, all come together to form Assemble’s innovative social enterprise Granby Workshop, a community project based in Liverpool’s Toxteth area.
This month’s recent acquisition is Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art’s acquisition of the First Collections: products and processes which make up the objects of this amazing arts and crafts social enterprise.
Assemble is a collective comprised of 18 members based in London who work across the fields of art, architecture and design. Through this project at the Granby Workshop the collective collaborated with local people and art graduates to design and produce ‘products’ that use the materials of the local area, that for a long time had faced dereliction. The project offered new skills, raised awareness and the profits of the product all go back to the community.
The acquisition ties neatly into the museum’s socially responsive programme by powerfully seeking to address the disconnection between the public and process by which places are made.