Soizig Carey

Soizig Carey
ImageTorc Rings, Photograph by Ciorstaidh Monk

How do you view Scotland as a place for celebrating craft?

Scotland is a great place to learn to make, with lots of expertise available. There are lots of quality short courses in which you can learn aspects of craft. In terms of sustaining this making, we are quite good as a country on the whole.

As a maker, when researching, my influences have tended to come from Europe because craft is so well served there and can be understood and discussed from a contemporary perspective. How can we represent our own culture in a parallel way alongside heritage craft? It feels as if there is need for change – how we consider and celebrate the value of making and craft. Could there be a an active national museum for craft, with an education programme and an exhibiting space? How would this look and could MAKE work towards developing strategy in this area? How can we engender a cultural shift in how people view craft generally?

What actions do you think would positively impact craft and making in Scotland?

I have worked with a lot of primary and secondary age students and craft is so often sidelined as an extra curricular activity. I think if we were educating students more holistically on the history of craft, from its connection to society, politics and culture, to how people live, we could provide a much stronger basis for the art-form.

In Higher Education, I think there is a massive gap to be bridged between finishing training and establishing your practice. How can we support makers through initial professional development? There is still a very linear approach for craft makers in education, providing limited support to expand practice beyond making and selling. What other options are open to makers working within craft? What is the innovation that fits our current time and economy? How can MAKE foreground these pathways?

I believe we need ambassadors for craft. Could they raise aspiration through debate and discussion? I would also welcome approaches to exhibition design for craft that are research driven, experiential and narrative-led, to underline the criticality of craft. We need a range of curatorial voices that understand quality. There is room for traditional showcasing within this, as long as there is room for other voices too.

Combining traditional and modern craft techniques, Soizig Carey creates poetic, precious metal forms which can be worn or serve as meaningful playful objects. Her most recent collection, ‘Estética’, explores geometric formulas, rotating movements and principally, the circle. The collection draws from publications by artist, designer and inventor, Bruno Munari, and by mathematician and philosopher, Matila Ghyka – each exploring geometry in art and nature and visual case studies of shapes.

Soizig is passionately committed to ethical and sustainable sourcing and uses fairly mined or recycled gemstones and precious metals. A French-Scottish contemporary jewellery maker, she has a BA in Silversmithing and Jewellery from Edinburgh College of Art.