The V&A and Sylva Foundation are hosting a summer school and inviting creative practitioners to take part. The Field Notes project will provide a unique opportunity for those with an interest in wood as a material, and in forests and woodlands as a place for learning and growing.

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For Sylva Foundation, the collaboration is an extension to its ongoing support of a Summer School. Head of the Sylva Wood School, Joseph Bray, commented:

“We are excited to be collaborating with the V&A this year, especially because of the amazing opportunity it will provide to the creative participants in having their work displayed at the museum. The Field Notes project will help meet some of our core aims at the Wood School in creating inspiring experiences and opportunities for young people to experience making with home-grown timber.”

For the V&A, the collaboration supports the second iteration of Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures programme. Curator of Twentieth Century and Contemporary Furniture and Product Design at the V&A, Johanna Agerman Ross, said:

“We are delighted to continue the 10-year Make Good programme with this summer school in collaboration with Sylva Foundation. It will be exciting to see what this summer school will bring in terms of interrogating the use of wood and natural materials in design and how the participants will reflect in the themes and questions we have proposed as a starting point.”

The outcome of the Project will be an object or series of objects made from underutilised home–grown timber and other natural materials, sourced locally on the Sylva Wood Centre site. These will be contextualised with reflections on the summer-school learning process in the form of imagery, spoken or written word, film or performance.

Sylva Summer School

The Field Notes summer school is open to anyone over the age of 18 with an interest in making. As the Wood School at Sylva Foundation is equipped with industry- standard wood working tools this is a great environment for people to further develop professional making skills. Some prior experience of using wood working tools being would be a benefit to participants. There are eight places available for makers wishing to explore making in wood. This is an opportunity suitable for students, recent graduates, or early-career practitioners.

There are a further four places for embedded observers, to learn from and capture the programme in some format other than making in wood, for example through writing, sketching, podcast making, film making, or photography. This is an opportunity suitable for students, recent graduates, or early-career practitioners. Mentors will be available to all participants, to help realise the different projects.

Field Notes

All applications will be treated equally, regardless of age, disability, gender identity or gender expression, race, ethnicity, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, or any other equality characteristic. We encourage applications from disabled people and people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, and from people who identify as queer or female as these groups are currently under-represented in the fields of forestry, design and making in wood.

For an overview of the Field Notes summer school, please read the full call-out here.

An application form is available below. If you have any difficulties viewing the application form, you can also access the form here.

DEADLINE 11th JULY 2022.