Stacey Hunter, curator of HARVEST: A celebration of Scottish craft.

HARVEST reimagines the traditional craft fair through an immersive, curated experience - spotlighting the very best of Scottish artistry and skill.

Presented by Craft Scotland and curated by Dr Stacey Hunter, the exhibition transforms 250sqm of Edinburgh’s City Art Centre into a space entirely furnished with Scottish craft.

Featuring over a thousand pieces from 80 makers, spanning furniture, ceramics, homewares, textiles, and jewellery, HARVEST offers a vivid snapshot of Scotland’s thriving contemporary craft scene under one roof - from Shetland to Dumfries and Galloway. This curated collection of works is on show until 19 October.

At the heart of HARVEST is a focus on storytelling, sustainability, and process, designed to deepen visitors’ engagement with Scotland’s makers and their work. Moving beyond the conventional gallery or retail setting, the show presents craft in a lived-in, tactile environment where visitors can visualise an entire home styled with objects made in Scotland. Complementing the main exhibition is a series of workshops and events, encouraging guests to connect more intimately with materials and techniques.

Chief curator of HARVEST, Dr Stacey Hunter, explains that the showcase embraces the seasonality and symbolism of gathering and gratitude that is associated with the harvest time. It’s a celebration of perseverance, skill, and dedication.

Some of our top spots included Studio Teller’s ‘The Low Sofa’ - carefully constructed in sustainably felled Ash from Inzievar Woods in Fife. Upholstered in a simple, muted palette of green and brown wool, woven in Scotland by Bute Fabrics, The Low Sofa’s palette reflects the shifting colours of the landscape during harvest season.

Tokes Sharif of Studio Brae presents a series of ceramic vessels inspired by the still-life compositions of Giorgio Morandi, created specifically in response to the theme of Harvest. The installation features groupings of bottles - some offered as curated sets, others as individual pieces - arranged to evoke a quiet sense of gathering and reflection.

Additional top picks included Glasgow-based potters Robert Hunter, Manifesto and Wild Gorse Pottery.

HARVEST highlights the emotional resonance of handmade objects, where quality in both design and making transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. Visitors are invited to handle ceramics, run their fingers across the textures of textiles, and try on jewellery, experiencing firsthand the connection between maker, material, and meaning.

Ultimately, HARVEST stands as a meditation on Scotland’s identity as a nation of makers, uniting community, creativity, and the enduring rewards of craft.

We were lucky enough to catch up with Stacey whilst HARVEST is on display, delving into the curation process behind it.

Firstly, can you please introduce us to the thought process behind HARVEST?

"The title comes from a connection with the gallery building hosting the exhibition. The City Art Centre began life as The Scotsman building, the newspaper as the site of the newspaper press. That was in 1899 alongside the emergence of the Arts and Crafts movement in Scotland.

"Years later, when the train lines that Waverley Station got put in, all of the fruit market that traditionally had been on that site, moved up to what is now Market Street, and so then the building became a warehouse for fruit and vegetables.

"In 1980, the city architects converted it into custom built or custom renovated art, art and craft presentation space. So it was really from that I was thinking about it being a trading post, over all those years of first of all information, then a trading post for fruit and vegetables and eventually art, and ideas around art.

"So it felt like HARVEST was a very fitting title to pull together this idea of a community coming together at harvest time in October, reflecting on the year that they've had. Reflecting on their shared perseverance in the pursuit of creating these beautiful objects and gathering to share the fruits of their labor. So in fact, the fruits of our labor was the working title of the show until I settled on HARVEST."

"There isn't a traditional museum logic to making your way around HARVEST. It’s much more exploratory than that."

How did you begin the curation process?

"It began, in a sense, with developing the theme of harvest. I thought about what the sub themes could be that people could tie their work into. I wanted it to be quite an interiors-led show, because it's a selling show. So I wanted to make it something attractive for people who work in furniture and lighting and textiles and ceramics to be able to respond to. Some of the sub themes were things like biomaterials or nature positive design. The main one was ‘living with craft’. This idea that you could furnish your whole home with items that were produced and made to incredibly high standard in Scotland by talented craftspeople.

"Then we had an open call that went out across the country, we had 209 applications, which is a really high number of applications for a show like this. We whittled that down with the help of William LeClerc at Liberty and Lorraine Grant from Art Farm and the Fife Arms, myself, and Craft Scotland Director, Irene Kernan.

"We sat down together and got that 209 down to 80 that you see in the show today. In terms of the curatorial process with the open call, some people had responded to the theme very vividly and very literally. Other people had referred back to the theme in a more abstract way. But ultimately, the way to tie it all together was really in terms of creating different showroom environments and different retail environments and exhibition spaces for visitors to be able to appreciate mediums of different mediums of work in different ways. So you see a lot of overlapping disciplines, where you have ceramics sitting on the same table as silversmithing and textiles.

"The curatorial approach allows people to come to the show and explore it in their own time and at their own pace. There isn't a traditional museum logic to making your way around HARVEST. It’s much more exploratory than that."

"It's commitment to materials, commitment to material specificity, and commitment to processes that just elevates the whole show past an ordinary craft fair."

What are some of the reoccurring themes you noticed explored across Harvest’s roster of Scottish makers?

"Some of the reoccurring themes that are visible throughout many works in the show are around people harvesting materials from the landscapes round about them.

"Julia Rebaudo has her own flock of sheep, which she shears herself, and creates these really beautiful rugs and wall hangings that we've got in the showroom.

"Then you have makers like Akiko Matsuda, who takes some of the Wild Clay from her family's farm in Angus and incorporates that into her beautiful tableware that she's created for harvest.

"Katie Charleson has created a beautiful wall divider and a wall hanging, and she has taken a very painterly approach to sketching out items that her and her son have found when they're going in their little walks together, objects that her son's picked up and brought back, and she's sketched them out, and then she's used vegetable dyes, made her own vegetable dyes and inks to then apply that imagery from her sketchbooks onto these beautiful room dividers, and then they're printed on to deadstocks of linens.

"That is another that's another area where I think Scotland is really ahead of the pack in terms of the rest of Europe, in terms of designers and makers who really are pushing the boundaries of how they innovate around sustainability, really interesting techniques for using what's abundant and minimising waste.

"You see that all over the show with HARVEST, particularly in jewellery. People in the jewellery sector here have been pioneering techniques where, for example, people are reusing the silver and gold from medical waste.

"That's just one of the many, many different ways that people are working in an ethical and sustainable way. I've been really impressed by how far ahead Scotland is in comparison to some other places in that respect."

"HARVEST is a snapshot of just where we are as a nation in terms of design and craft."

What are some key materials and craft processes featured in Harvest that celebrated a sense of Scottish belonging and why?

"My thoughts go immediately to Oliver Spendley's incredible collection that he's produced especially for this show. Oliver is based in Lairg, Northwest of Scotland. Here, he has located some sites of standing stones in Scotland, and these sites have influenced his coffee table and his side table for us.

"They're quite elemental. They have huge pieces of rock embedded into the base of the coffee table, carrying the weight of the timber structure that sits at the top of it, and even the treatment of the timber itself. It's the same scorched technique that people use in the Highlands to protect houses and barns from the elements so incredibly sturdy.

"It also makes me think of basket makers that we have in the show like Anna Liebmann, Carline Dear, Katie Warner and Helen Jackson. Some of these like Anna, grow and harvest their own willow in order to make their beautiful baskets.

"The thing that unites all of these people at HARVEST is that they've got a very contemporary take to their work. It's very design led work, but quite often that carries with it the histories of, in some cases, hundreds of years of craft techniques.

"Joe Ginniff's wardrobe, The Barn, has a thatched roof that was actually constructed for him by a professional thatched roofer from the architectural conservation sector. So it's that commitment to materials, commitment to material specificity, and commitment to processes that just elevates the whole show past an ordinary craft fair. These are some of the things that make it particularly Scottish and really contextualised by where we are."

Can you tell us what the future of Scottish craft looks like for you?

"The future for Scottish craft is incredibly bright. I feel really privileged to be working in the craft sector in a creative capacity, and as a curator at this moment in time.

"HARVEST is a snapshot of just where we are as a nation in terms of design and craft. And I feel like there's such an amazing opportunity for me now working within the ecosystem that we have alongside all the brilliant work that people like Bard are doing, people like Lorraine Grant at Art Farm and The Fife Arms are doing, GRAS and Custom Lane.

"There's so many people who are so passionate about supporting the community, and the community itself is flourishing like it never has before. Speaking on behalf of Craft Scotland I see our role really as helping to broker opportunities for designers to be able to sell their work, promote their work, and for it to land into the hands and the laps of people who really appreciate it for the incredible quality and value it represents.

"I can't think of any other time in history where you have all of the technological innovations, and creative sparkle experimentation alongside that really deep commitment to material specificity and courage around revitalising old techniques in contemporary ways. I couldn’t be more delighted to be involved in the Craft and Design industry in Scotland at this very moment."

HARVEST is on show at City Art Centre, Edinburgh until 19 October 2025.