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Take a look through some of the events coming soon
Visit Rachel in the garden of Vale House in the picturesque Derbyshire village of Melbourne. See some of her new works and find put more about her latest projects.
Opening on the 14th July, this is our first major exhibition showing the work behind the arts and heritage project Standing In This Place co-created by sculptor Rachel Carter.
It looks to highlight the contributions and connections between white mill workers and black enslaved women uprooted to the Americas, showing how their stories and histories are connected by cotton, sorrow, strength and resilience. The project asks us to think about who is and should be remembered while bringing to our attention that less than 5% of statues in the UK portray non-royal women.
Visit the museum for free.
Rachel has been selected as an invited artist to showcase some of her hand woven cast bronze sculptures this year at the Ashbourne Festival’s summer exhibition. Come along to see a range of work in the beautiful Peak District town of Ashbourne.
Visit The Park, a special area of Nottingham city, featuring beautiful architectural homes. Join us for the art trail and see artists and sculptors exhibiting in the gardens of these spectacular houses.
In a city with a reputation of an abundance of women, where can we find them in our public art?
Join us for a stimulating evening of learning, conversation and connection.
Join artist Rachel Carter as she shares her sculptural journey researching her ancestors working in the Darley Abbey cotton Mill of the early 1800’s and the textile industries links to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and how this developed into a new sculpture highlighting the contributions of women to the wealth of the industrial Midlands.
Hear some of the poetry written as part of the Standing In This Place project that asked why only 5% of public statues in the UK represent women and even fewer women of colour.
Produced by Derby Museums as part of Derby Book Festival.
Our Book Fair returns to the Museum of Making. Discover stories old and new, hear local writers read from their work - or take a chance with one of our mystery books! We’ll have a range of stalls including authors, publishers and book-related crafts.
Rachel will be at the event with the Standing In this Place poetry books and craft kits.
Join us for the 10th Belper Arts Trail on April 30th and May 1st, opening times are 10:30am to 4:30pm on both days. This year 165 artists and makers will take up residence in 60 venues around the centre of Belper displaying and selling an enormous variety of art and crafts.
Visit Rachel and some her new sculptures at 32 Corn Exchange, this is a new complex of shops set back from the road towards the bottom of King Street. A total of six artists different will be hosted in this venue exhibited through the unit, in the offices and courtyard areas.
Royal Society for the Arts FELLOWSHIP EVENT
27 Mar 2023 5:45 PM - 8:00 PM
What does the art in our public places tell us about the stories we choose to remember and pass on? What (and whose) stories remain hidden; absent from public view?
As the city contemplates proposals for a new statue in the Broad Marsh area, join us for a stimulating evening of learning, conversation and connection.
Historically many of our statues have been erected by leading civic organisations, businesses and public subscription. They celebrate and commemorate events and people that have helped shape our cities and nations. But did you know only 5% of public statues in the UK represent women and even fewer women of colour? What does their absence signify?
At this event you will:
Learn what Dr James Dawkins discovered about public statues and plaques in Nottingham.
Hear the story of Rachel Carter’s sculpture, connecting local women textile workers with enslaved women working in the cotton fields of America and the Caribbean.
Meet members of the Legacy Makers – the Black community group working to inform residents and visitors of the contribution of enslaved people to the prosperity of the textile industries in the East Midlands.
Discover the opportunity to join with the National Justice Museum, the Museum of Making, independent philanthropists and interested citizens, to erect this nationally important statue in the heart of Nottingham.
Grab a drink and network with others helping to shape the city, the region and the local and national stories we pass on.
Join Rachel and community stitchers at the Big Textile Show as they share the scale model of the new sculpture Standing In This Place and explain how you can get involved as a patron to the project.
About - Standing In This Space is a community-driven sculpture celebrating the Midlands' rich cultural heritage that will be placed in the Green Heart of the new Broad Marsh redevelopment. A space where people from Nottingham can come, relax and connect with each other, and will be one of the first areas new visitors to the city will see.
Standing In This Place addresses the contribution of women from the cotton mills and factories in the Midlands to the enslaved working in the cotton fields in America and the Caribbean. The challenging history of the Midlands and our global connections is one that should not be hidden. Through retelling the stories of our ancestors we have the chance to educate not miseducate about the contributions that the working class and enslaved labour force have made to the Midlands.
We’re hoping to prompt questions about our shared history, uncover stories and provide an opportunity to learn from the past and have open conversations. We want to bring people together and challenge the perspective of the industrial landscape of the Midlands, its stories of enslaved labour and those of its working classes.
An annual celebration of makers and making of all shapes and sizes at the new Museum of Making.
Following the success of last year’s event, ‘Assemble: Derby’s Making Festival’ returns to the Museum of Making on Saturday 22nd October 2022, this year featuring Aardman Animation!
Produced by Derby Museums, Assemble is a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, which aims to celebrate making in all its shapes and forms. Bringing together artists and makers from varied disciplines to share their passion and skills with the public and to encourage others to have a go at making themselves.
Last year’s event saw audiences of over 900 in attendance and featured more than 50 makers on-site, with demonstrations in everything from ceramics and embroidery to laser-cutting, weaving, jewellery-making, metalwork, robotics and automata, visitors could also try workshops in clay-modelling, knitting, coding, origami and letterpress printing to name but a few.
Assemble is an opportunity to share your passions and skills, network with other makers and artists and inspire the makers of the future all in the glorious surroundings of the Museum of Making, a UNESCO World Heritage on what is widely regarded as the site of the world’s first factory.
Come along to this special celebration exhibition marking the end of the first phase of the project Standing In This Place. Within the gallery you will see the unveiling of the scale model of the sculpture, photographs of the community activities, work by the textile group Sugar Stealers and much more.
Within the gallery will be the chance to read our collection of creative poetry, find our about the next step of the project and talk to the community members who took part in this creative project.
Look out for details of special guests.
Come and visit Rachel as she creates a display in one of the stunning venues in the Derbyshire town of Melbourne. Open over two days, the festival offers 140 exhibtiing artists over 70 venues along with fantastic food and live music.
Standing in this Place is a community arts project led by sculptor rachel carter, co-produced with hundreds of women across the Midlands. The project addresses the lack of female representation in statues throughout the UK and will create and place a bronze sculpture of two women in the heart of the Midlands, in Nottingham is Broadmarsh. This beautiful public sculpture will challenge the industrial landscape of our past, symbolising the shared stories of women working in the Midlands cotton mills and factories and enslaved women working in the cotton fields of America and the Caribbean.
The project lab display shares fragments of multifaceted project from the perspective of its contributing makers, enabling today is women to give voice to women of the past. It prompts questions on our shared history, and cover stories and provides an opportunity to learn from the past.
Come along to the National Justice Museum to see some of the work behind the Standing In This Place project, discover how only 5% of British statues represent women and get involved by Making Your Mark, a response to the underrepresentation of women in statues today.
Come and visit Rachel as she’s creates an exhibition display at the Point 6 Coffee House as part of the Six Streets Arts Trail in Derby City. With 52 artists exhibiting in 31 venues, plus live music, poetry, dance and pop cafes there’s plenty to make a great weekend.
Come and see Rachel at the Belper Arts Festival Trail 2022, see her new Woven Pear Sculpture displayed in the hosts garden alongside small bronze sculptures and weaving kits you can buy.
Venue details coming soon.
Open to the public 10.30am - 4.30pm Bank Holiday Sunday and Monday
Join artist Rachel Carter for a workshop to learn how to create a handwoven garden sculpture.
Light & Shade, an exhibition featuring the work by Melbourne Festival artists Kerri Pratt, Rachel Carter and Val Hudson at the Creative Melbourne Gallery.
From 30th March to 23rd April, open 10am-4pm Wednesday - Saturday
In the 400th anniversary year of the Mayflower voyage, artist and sculptor Rachel Carter followed in the footsteps of the Mayflower Pilgrims to develop a brand-new body of sculptural work inspired by their journey and encounters, which brings together ancient crafts and contemporary technology in new and innovative ways. In order to bring attention to the often-unheard stories of the women on this journey, Rachel created the Pilgrim Woman series; a plus life-size bronze sculpture for the DANUM Gallery in Doncaster near Austerfield, birthplace of pilgrim William Bradford; a smaller Pilgrim that stands on a carved stone plinth in Gainsborough and a new sculpture, ‘Pilgrim Women Boston’. featuring two women bound together with a cord created through a public engagement project with women around the county.
This exhibition brings together elements from Rachel’s research and broader practice to contextualise the Pilgrim Woman sculpture series and showcase the depth of research undertaken by the artist during this project. A key example of this research is her eight-day voyage across the Atlantic on a cargo ship– echoing the voyage of the Mayflower Separatists. Throughout the project, Rachel has been committed to researching and exploring the lesser-known histories of the Mayflower Pilgrim’s journeys, including the histories of the people of the First Nations. Spending time in Boston, MA, she visited The Peabody Museum, part of the Harvard University campus, and spent a few days in the archives, assisted by specialists and archivists, studying and sketching artefacts made by people of the First Nations, examples of which can be seen in the exhibition.
Join Rachel for a live talk about her Mayflower project, sailing to America onboard a cargo ship following in the footsteps of the Separatists from South Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire who sailed on the Mayflower in 1620. Rachel has since completed the Pilgrim Woman series of sculptures as a response to the lack of representation of women in history.
Beyond the Mayflower will look at how amongst the Mayflower passengers were a group of religious separatists, known as the ‘Pilgrims’, many of whom came from Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire.
The exhibition will explore how we can understand these individuals by tracing the history of religious dissent in Nottinghamshire and examining how the faith of individuals and communities was controlled and monitored by the crown. The history of dissent, power and faith in the county during the seventeenth century and in later periods can be found in the Records of the Archdeaconry of Nottingham, held at Manuscripts and Special Collections. Included among these documents are the reports on parishioners who were thought by the Church of England to have departed from ‘proper’ religious practice, including the ‘Pilgrim Father’ William Brewster.
Through this exhibition, we explore how children, women and men from Nottinghamshire were part of a history that is more than the Mayflower. The separatists who left the county for the ‘new world’ are one group amongst many. Across Nottinghamshire there were groups whose ideas were subject to surveillance and censure because they were different. By understanding the wider history of religious dissent, we can explore issues of equality and freedom today.
Come and see Rachel at the Melbourne Festival Art and Architecture Trail which consists of easy-walking loops around the central streets of Melbourne. The Trail can be started at any point, but each adult will need a Trail Wrist Band and a Trail Guide to enter the buildings which will cost £5 per person. The Trail Guide consists of a map of Melbourne with Festival sites marked. The Trail Wrist Band is a pass to get into all the gardens and halls free of charge.
