Hayward Gallery - Southbank Center
Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX

Exhibition Dates: June 11 - August 17, 2008

Curated by Margaret and Christine Werteim

This exhibition is generously sponsored by the Crafts Council, with the additional assistance of the Norton Family Foundation and George Loudon.

Opening Reception: Tuesday June 10, Hayward Gallery.

Crochet Reef Symposium: Friday June 13, 10am-4pm.

www.haywardgallery.org.uk

During Summer 2008 - in this International Year of the Reef - the Crochet Coral Reef will be showing in London at the Hayward Gallery. The exhibition will include an expanded version of the Bleached Reef, a new configuration of the Ladies Silurian Reef, the beautifully archaic Branched Anemone Garden, and the ever-growing Toxic Reef. On show for the first time will be the wondrously surreal Chicago Cambrian Reef (curated by IFF contributor Aviva Alter), plus a new formation of the Beaded Reef by master beaders Rebecca Peapples and Sue Von Ohlsen. The exhibition will also debut several new plastic installations: The Exploding Plastic Inevitable Reef (with hot-pink sand by Kathleen Greco), and the Bottle Tree Grove (featuring works by Christine Wertheim, Evelyn Hardin and Nadia Severns). Hanging elements in the show will include the all-plastic-bag Rubbish Vortex by Australian contributor Helle Jorgensen, a flotilla of jellyfish by Irish crafter Inga Hamilton, and Dr Axt's psychedelic coral-cloud "Reefer Madness."

In addition to the IFF reefs, the exhibition will also debut the amazing new UK Reef, currently being constructed by crafters across the UK (with contributions from Ireland, and even Australia - hey its a former colony).

- On Friday June 13 the Southbank center will host an all-day symposium inspired by the Crochet Reef Project. Speakers will include crochet reef creators Margaret and Christine Wertheim; mathematician Dr Daina Taimina, inventor of hyperbolic crochet; radical UK crafters, environmentalists, and coral reef biologists. [More Information Coming Soon.]

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We are honored with this show to have the generous support of the UK Crafts Council, who have spearheaded the production of a UK Reef, which will be exhibited alongside the IFF Reefs at the Hayward Gallery and Southbank Center. In March 2008, IFF Director Margaret Wertheim travelled to London to hold workshops and get London crafters started. Some 40 artisans attended, and even in the space of that first weekend it was clear the UK Reef was going to be a uniquely complex construction. This is the third local spawn from the IFF core reef, following similar initiatives in Chicago and New York, and we are already certain (given the photos above) that the collected talents of Bristish crafters are going to produce something very special indeed.

The UK Reef is being managed for the Crafts Council by Katy Bevan, and for the Hayward Gallery by Becca Connock and Cathy Woolley. We welcome all those who would like to participate in this collective endeavour. If you live in the UK (or would like to think you do, or just feel like pretending you are British for a bit) and would like to participate in the UK Reef, please send email to: ukreef@southbankcenter.co.uk

- More information about the Crafts Council may be seen at their website: www.craftscouncil.org.uk

- See here for the latest issue of Crafts magazine with a lovely article about the Crochet Reef Project: www.craftscouncil.org.uk/crafts-magazine/

One of the core goals of the IFF Crochet Reef project is to draw attention to the tsunami of plastic trash that is flooding into our oceans. From the beginning, the Hayward team have embraced this goal and sought to bring it into prominence within the exhibition. We are delighted to have the partnership here of the environmental organization Thames21, whose mission is to help clean up the banks of the Thames, which (along with river-ways everywhere) is being inundated with trash. In March, Thames21 director Chris Coode escorted the exhibition team on a mile-long expedition along the Thames bank to collect plastic bags. The bags were cleaned and brought to the Hyperbolic Crochet workshop at the Southbank Center on the weekend of March 16/17. Thames21 has agreed to provide a supply of genuine grubbed-up-from-the-Thames plastic bags for production of UK Reef forms. We are delighted to announce that while not everyone is willing to crochet used plastic bags, a number of the workshop participants embraced the idea. Indeed, several had come with their own plastic bags, including bright orange Sainsbury's and Okada bags, which happen to be the exact colour featured in the Toxic Reef. We are especially eager to have UK Reef contributions in plastic, and we encourage all participants to think about using their own plastic discards in their reef forms.

- More information about Thames21 and their clean-up work can be seen at the organization's website: www.thames21.org.uk

- More information about the issue of plastic trash in the oceans can be seen here: http://www.theiff.org/reef/reef4.html

- More information about crocheting plastic trash can be seen here: http://www.theiff.org/reef/crochetingplastic.html

Full list of Contributors to the IFF Reef Hayward Exhibition Coming Soon.

The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef exhibition at the Hayward Gallery is generously supported by the Crafts Council, with additional assistance from the Norton Family Foundation and George Loudon.

The Crochet Reef has been produced with support from the Annenberg Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Norton Family Foundation, and Daniel and Joanna Rose Foundation.

Special thanks to Ralph Rugoff and Clare West.