Absolut Supports Up and Coming Designers at New Designers 2015

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Absolut Supports Up and Coming Designers at New Designers 2015
New Designers exhibition opens 24 June 2015

Absolut and New Designers are proud to announce the 2015 edition of the Absolut @ New Designers competition.

New Designers, which turns 30 this year, is the largest exhibition for emerging art and design in the UK, providing an opportunity for the country’s most creative and fresh thinking graduates to exhibit their work. For the fifth year running, Absolut have partnered with the exhibition to invite participating graduates to use the bottle as a blank canvas and create their own transformation of it.

The first spirit brand to forge genuinely close ties with the creative community, Absolut has been active in the art world since 1986, when it invited Andy Warhol to create the first in a series of iconic advertisements inspired by the Absolut bottle. Since then, Absolut has collaborated with more than 1000 artists on over 800 commissioned projects.

Absolut continue to grow their arts legacy by supporting and collaborating with emerging talent in the design world. Six New Designers finalists will be invited to produce their designs on 50cm Absolut Original glass bottles live at New Designers 2015, with the pieces exhibited at the show in advance of the winners being announced. Each winner will receive £500 of artists’ materials to help them continue their practice after graduation, and their work will be exhibited for one year in the foyer of the Absolut UK London offices.

Past winners of the Absolut prize include Harriet Riddell who live-machine stitched drawings of New Designers visitors and exhibitors onto an Absolut shaped canvas, creating a vibrant and visual artwork. With the materials Harriet won in the competition, she was able to become mobile and take her stitching to the public. This has included portrait stitching at Greenwich Market and a trip around India where she live stitched her way around the country.

For the duration of the exhibition, Absolut will run an art salon where the public are invited to design their own transformation of the Absolut bottle and enter a competition to win a bar tab of £100 for themselves and five friends.

Absolut will also be hosting one of their popular Absolut Art Talks on 25 June. A panel of respected industry guests including Rhonda Drakeford, co-founder of independent design store Darkroom and Robin McNicholas of creative studio Marshmallow Laser Feast who will come together in conversation around the subject of ‘Celebrating a Colourful World’ - discussing ways in which designers create and celebrate the innovative, individual, extraordinary and colourful in our lives.

Absolut at New Designers
Dates: 24 - 27 June, 1-4 July 2015

Times:
·         Wednesday 24 June - Awards Preview - 6.30pm-9pm
·         Thursday 25 June - 10am-8pm
·         Friday 26 June - 10am-6pm
·         Saturday 27 June - 10am-5.30pm
·         Wednesday 01 July
o   VIP & Press Preview: 3pm-6.30pm
o   Awards Preview Evening: 6.30pm-9pm
·         Thursday Late 02 July: 10am-8pm
·         Friday 03 July: 10am-6pm
·         Saturday 04 July: 10am-5pm

Address: Business Design Centre, Islington, London, N1
Entry: From £11.50
http://www.newdesigners.com/absolut

Absolut Art Talk

Date: Thursday 25 June
Times: Drinks reception 5.30. Talk begins 6.15. Event closes 8pm.
Address: Business Design Centre, Islington, London, N1
Entry: Free with New Designers ticket, booking required
Book: http://www.newdesigners.com/page.cfm/Action=Form/FormID=116/t=m