Himmeli with the Saturday Club at the V&A

Following our GATHER installation at LDF14, The Saturday Market Project was invited to host a workshop for the National Art and Design Saturday Club at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. On Saturday 1 November 2014, SMP's Els Woldhek bundled up plenty of straw and high visibility yarn and made her way over...

"At the V&A I met our cheerful group of children - they'll be following classes in art and design for 14 weeks, as part of The National Art and Design Saturday Club. The Club is an initiative of the Sorrel Foundation, which was set up by Frances and John Sorrell in 1999. The aim is to inspire creativity in young people - something we're really passionate about at SMP. The Saturday Club is a part of their wide range of programs and was inspired by the Saturday classes they both attended at their local art schools when they were 14 years old. It offers young people aged 14-16 the unique opportunity to study art and design every Saturday morning at their local college or university for free.

After a short introduction we got stuck into the straw and started on making the first himmeli. The morning was for everyone to learn the basic principles and to experiment with them.

In the afternoon, we all teamed up in an effort to use the strength of the himmeli shape to create a sculpture as tall as the teacher; I'm 6 foot, which is a tall order for two hours' work (sorry)!

At 3 o'clock, our time was up, and we had reached a height of 1. 2 meters (about 4ft) - a fantastic effort!"

Thank you to the National Art and Design Saturday Club and the V&A museum for having us. If you'd like to try making himmeli yourself, see our step-by-step instructions.