Charlotte Abrahams

Charlotte Abrahams

Design led Conversations

I am experienced moderator, leading design-led conversations with creative people including the architect Peter Marino and designers Paolo Moschino & Philip Vergeylen, Staffan Tollgard, Zandra Rhodes, David/Nicolas, Pierre Frey, Andrew Winch, and Ray Booth.

FOCUS 2025

I moderated a discussion about Designing Difference with Staffan Tollgård, Karen Howes and Andrew Hills of Porta Romana as part of Focus 2025.

WOW!TALKS 2025
I was discussing the craft of wow with Staffan Tollgård, Tommaso Franchi, founder of Tomèf Design; Nicola Cox, co-founder of Cox London, and Clare Gaskin in Crafted Connections
at Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour.

Words at the Works 2024

For this year-long series of talks, I brought leading artists, thinkers, collectors and curators to Victoria Works Studios for thought-provoking conversations ranging from the joy of collecting and disruptive beauty to Ai, alternative narratives and creative relationships.

More than Just Stuff; why life is better shared with objects – Peter Ting & Brian Kennedy

On Beauty: Women | Decoration | Disruption – Charlotte Hodes

Future Heritage: how to collect and commission the craft of today to be the heirlooms  of tomorrow – Corinne Julius

Imagining Ai Differently: speculative fiction and the common octopus – Maggie Roberts

The Artist & The Gallerist: a creative relationship – Sarah Myerscough & Maisie Broadhead

The Stories We Tell Ourselves: narrative in art – Matt Smith

Seeing the World through a more than Human Lens – Merlin Sheldrake & Rob Kesseler

I was talking about Redefining Hospitality with Russell Sage, Katharine Pooley, James Kandutsch and Nicolò Castelllini Baldissera and Why Making Matters with Lisa Montague, Claire Vallis (CEO & Design Director of Sanderson Design Group) and Deborah Pocock of QEST as part of Focus/24/

WOW!house 2024

I was in conversation with Lisa Montague, Benedict Foley and Amy Nelson-Bennett, discussing Sustainability in Design.

I was talking to Suzy Hoodless, Adam Bray and Mimi Shodeinde, founder of Miminat about Making your Mark as part of London Design Week 2024 at Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour

Curating

I also love using beautiful objects to tell stories.

BLOOM at Crafts Alive 2025, Rodmarton Manor, September 205

BLOOM was a site-specific installation composed of individual pieces of work by 17 artists from Victoria Works Studios. It sat within the broader Crafts Alive festival and, in responding to the view of Rodmarton Manor’s garden and the landscape beyond that unfolds beneath the window, spoke to the overarching ‘Flowers and the Maker’ theme of this year’s Crafts Alive.

But BLOOM was also conceived as a reaction to the interior space it occupied; an attic, a behind-the-scenes place inhabited by behind-the-scenes people – domestic staff, children, perhaps some of the artisans involved in the making of the house – whose presence can still be powerfully felt in the furniture and objects. Much of the work the artists made sought to conjure these hidden lives, bringing them into the spotlight and asking us to consider how they bloomed within the space.

Participating artists

Emma Cooper-Key, artist and artisan; Mandy Coppes Martin, visual artist; Katerina Gibb, upholsterer; Ruth Hickson, illustrator and printmaker; Emily Johnson, ‘Lampshade Rebellion’; Sam Lucas, artist working predominantly in clay; Lizzie Mabley, printmaker and fabric designer; Rachel McDonnell, painter; Teresa Poole, mixed media artist; Sadie Rowlands,mosaic artist; Rebecca Simmons, ceramicist; Anna Simson, ceramicist; Lucian Taylor, silversmith and jeweller; Saira Todd, art psychotherapist and natural fibre artist; Stuart Voaden, artist; Jill Watton, multi-disciplinary artist; Jane Wright, mixed media artist and lacemaker

A SENSE OF PLACE, Victoria Works Studios, October 2024

This was the second of two exhibitions I curated to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of Victoria Works Studios. The theme reflects the influence this Victorian building and its location has on the artists for whom it is home, and also speaks to wider concepts of belonging and community. Each of the 23 artists who took part responded with thought and skill and imagination resulting in an exhibition which stood as a creative testament to the community of a remarkable collection of studios. (Images by Amanda Harman.)

REUSE, REINVENT, Victoria Works Studios, June 2024

This was first of two exhibitions I curated to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of Victoria Works Studios. Current and invited former residents created new work in response to themes of reuse and reinvention, ideas which spoke both to the history of the former Victorian chair factory that VWS calls home and to urgent contemporary concerns around consumption and sustainability.

You can read more about the programme of events I curated for Victoria Works Studios here

My other exhibition credits include Rodmarton Reimagined, which ran as part of Crafts Alive with the Gloucester Guild of Craftsmen in September 2018 and The Craft of Wallpaper at the Geffrye Museum in association with London Craft Week 2016.

‘Hidden’ by Charlotte Hodes

Rodmarton Reimagined was a response to the Arts & Crafts manor house Rodmarton Manor. I am fascinated by the concept of home and the way in which we use objects to root and reflect ourselves and, for this show, I selected artworks rich in personal narrative – a ceramic vase reconstructed with vintage fabric following a breakage; a textile portrait of a relative known as ‘Fag Ash Lil’ and a tiny doll with a secret to reveal. Each object was carefully placed in a suite of furnished bedrooms and a bathroom and visitors were invited to explore, discovering pieces of jewellery stowed in the drawers of a dressing table, a mosaic mirror resting on a mantlepiece, and a pair of stitched lace collars hanging from a wardrobe door. Rodmarton Manor was also used as an informal workshop for local makers, so I also commissioned a group of nine artists from Victoria Works Studio in the nearby village of Chalford, to create a collection of site specific work that responded not only to the family history of the house, but also to the Arts and Craft philosophy at its heart.

Participating artists: Moira Buckley, Zoe Hillyard, Charlotte Hodes, Natasha Kerr, Nicki Jarvis, Hannah Louise Lamb, Sue Paraskeva, Cleo Mussi, Sandra Shashou, Liz Valenti, Rosalind Wyatt. Victoria Works Group: Nicola Clark, Katerina Gibb, Gourd & Horse, Lizzie Mabley, Rachel McDonnell, Anna Simson, Jill Watton, Zoe Watts

I also curated the biannual new design showcase Spotted at TopDrawer for 12 years, launching more than 300 new design brands to the retail market.

Get in touch with me at Charlotte@charlotteabrahams.com