www.stevenfollen.com

Steven Follen is a designer, artist and educator with a broad subject knowledge and specialist skills in 3D design, Applied Arts – metalwork, ideas development and drawing.

His studio practice includes: 

• making metal vessels and artefacts, 

• producing design solutions for site specific, client-focussed commissions

• working in educational contexts with students, educators, professionals and the public, researching and interpreting sites and museum or gallery collections and running creative workshops to produce outcomes that help to make places, spaces and collections accessible to wider audiences. 

His practice combines analogue and digital processes, industrial and traditional craft skills with creative and inventive use of materials to produce outcomes that are intelligent and engage audiences on multiple levels, from the tacit and practical to the thoughtful.

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He has worked on projects across the UK as well as in India, Bangladesh, Australia, Italy and Finland.

His work is included in The Contemporary Arts Society’s Special Collection of Metalwork at Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery; Crafts Council’s national collection in London; Manchester Metropolitan University Contemporary Craft Collection; Aberdeen Museum and Art Gallery and South East Arts Collection at Hove Museum. 

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Projects include large-scale commissions for Felix Warley working with interior design group DesignLSM, The Royal Shakespeare Company’s 'Swan Wing' Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon, and temporary installations with the National Trust and Unravelled Arts. He has completed commissions for the entrance foyer to the Craft Study Centre, Farnham; a processional cross for St Botolph’s Church, Aldgate, to commemorate those who died in the London bombings at Aldgate on 7th July 2005; seating and tree-grilles for the Ropetackle development in Shoreham, West Sussex and paving designs for Dorsten Square as part of a redevelopment project in Crawley, West Sussex.  Steven has regularly been involved in the ‘Big Draw’ for the ‘Campaign for Drawing’, producing award winning projects.

He has worked in informal educational settings through residencies, workshops and commissions with a diverse range of learners of all ages and abilities, including youth groups, SEND groups, primary and secondary schools, VIth form colleges, curators, teachers and education officers as well as with the general public. He has been lead artist on a number of large scale public art events, working with artists, volunteers, scientific and education teams to develop collaborative projects which engage the public in the work which is undertaken by organisations such as the Royal Botanic Gardens at Wakehurst Place and Kew, the V&A Museum of Childhood, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and the Natural History Museum.

He has taught across a number of Higher Education institutions at FdA, BA and MA levels, acting as year coordinator, module leader and project tutor. He has also taught in Further Education as Programme Lead for the 3D Design pathway on a UAL Level 3 and Level 4 Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, and as Course Director for a new International UAL Level 3 foundation Diploma in Art and Design, where he designed and developed the course programme, VLE, teaching and learning materials and resources, and was responsible for assessment, feedback and course-level quality assurance processes. He is currently a Lecturer in Product Design in the School of Engineering, Informatics and Design at the University of Sussex.

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Link to Biography

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