BLA Jeweller in Residence

The British Library and Artquest Jeweller in Residence programme provides exclusive access to the British Library collections and curators, plus a £3,000 bursary, for a London based jeweller with at least five years’ practice. The 2012 residency has been awarded to jeweller and choreographer Sarah Warsop.

You can read more about Sarah's progress and the direction her practice is taking on the British Library Website.

Through drawing, Sarah aims to bridge dance and object making, and capture to in jewellery the complexities and characteristics of human movement.

As a dance artist, she has worked for the past 20 years with Rambert Dance Company and Siobhan Davies Dance. She recently collaborated with artist Idris Khan to make the film Lying In Wait (2009), and with artist Tracey Rowledge creating What isn’t Here Hasn’t Happened (2011), a series of large graphite drawings.

Her jewellery work has been supported by Arts Council England and the Crafts Council. It has shown at Origin and with Goldsmiths’ and is in public and private collections

Sarah has a BA (Dance) from the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance, and an MA Design (Jewellery) from Central St Martins.

The programme

The resiency and bursary are intended as an opportunity for a jeweller to take their work in a new direction by gaining access to the unique collections and curators at the British Library, and support in commercialising their work through the British Library Business and IP Centre.

The residency artist receives:

  • A bursary of £3,000 to develop (and potentially commercialise) a new body of work using material from the British Library collections.
  • Access to British Library collections and curators.
  • Access to business and intellectual property advice in the Library’s Business & IP Centre, which helps people to set up, run and grow their own business.
  • Marketing support in relation to their activity undertaken on the residency.

A short film of the residency recipients experiences will also be made and will be released in May 2013.

The residency runs from September 2012 to March 2013.

The British Library has a copy of every book published in the UK, and the following specialist collections:

  • Artists’ books
  • Botanical drawings
  • Chinese woodblocks and calligraphy
  • Digital and historical maps
  • Every magazine published in the UK
  • Illuminated manuscripts
  • Japanese woodcut prints
  • Market research e.g. consumer data, trends, etc.
  • National and local newspapers
  • Olga Hirsch decorated papers
  • Patents, trade marks, copyright and designs
  • Photographs
  • Russian Avant-Garde books and posters
  • Sheet music and music recordings
  • Social sciences information e.g. on the environment, society, etc.
  • Sound recordings e.g. oral history, soundscapes, sound recordings, etc.
  • Stamps
  • Zines, graphic novels and comics

Further information about the collections can be found at on the British Library website