Caroline Broadhead was born in Leeds. Caroline studied jewellery at the Central School of Art and Design London and the Leicester School of Art.
After graduating in 1972, she set up her own practice in Covent Garden, sharing workshop space with two colleagues. Caroline also set up and ran a business with Nuala Jamison, making buttons and acrylic jewellery for Jean Muir and other dress designers. Caroline has been a lecturer, visiting speaker, external examiner, advisor and exhibitor. In 1978, she started her first teaching job on the wood, metals, plastics and ceramics course, for two days a week, having had no previous experience of teaching. Caroline has taught textiles, jewellery ceramics, and other disciplines at Brighton Polytechnic, Middlesex University, and Goldsmiths College, University of London and is currently Textile and Jewellery Programme and Course Leader in BA Jewellery Design at Central Saint Martins, London.
"I had made the decision not to expect to make a living from my work, but to follow ideas in the most wholehearted way I could. A teaching job meant that I was able to support my own practice as well as offering support to less experienced makers" *
A visit to East Africa in the late 1970s encouraged Caroline to create jewellery that was bolder and responded to the form of the body. By the mid 1980s, her constructions had become increasingly removed from jewellery as she concentrated on conceptual aspects of clothing and installation art. Her work explores value, movement and change in various different materials and it developed into hybrid work in the area between clothing and jewellery. Over time, the concerns of her work have developed to other things that come into contact with or represent the body: shadows, clothing, chairs These have been exhibited internationally.
Caroline started to collaborate with choreographers in 1990 designing for dance and performance, and this allowed her to explore her interest in the way objects inspire gestures in a more dynamic way, integrating design and movement in dance performances. Using space and boundaries between people, to develop atmospheres and emotional responses.
She was awarded the Jerwood Prize for Applied Art: Textiles in 1997.
A number of works have been made in historic buildings, such as the promenade performance, The Waiting Game, made with Angela Woodhouse, in Upnor Castle, Kent, 1997 and installations, Breathing Space, York St Mary’s, 2005 and Above Below in Bath Abbey, 2011.
Caroline's continued interest in jewellery has led her to curate two shows about current practice:
New Tradition, British Crafts Centre, London - 1984
Then and Now, Marsden Woo Gallery, London - 2007
* Quote from an interviewhttp://arts.brighton.ac.uk/faculty-of-arts-brighton/alumni-and-associates/associates-and-alumni/fashion-and-textiles/broadhead,-caroline
After graduating in 1972, she set up her own practice in Covent Garden, sharing workshop space with two colleagues. Caroline also set up and ran a business with Nuala Jamison, making buttons and acrylic jewellery for Jean Muir and other dress designers. Caroline has been a lecturer, visiting speaker, external examiner, advisor and exhibitor. In 1978, she started her first teaching job on the wood, metals, plastics and ceramics course, for two days a week, having had no previous experience of teaching. Caroline has taught textiles, jewellery ceramics, and other disciplines at Brighton Polytechnic, Middlesex University, and Goldsmiths College, University of London and is currently Textile and Jewellery Programme and Course Leader in BA Jewellery Design at Central Saint Martins, London.
"I had made the decision not to expect to make a living from my work, but to follow ideas in the most wholehearted way I could. A teaching job meant that I was able to support my own practice as well as offering support to less experienced makers" *
A visit to East Africa in the late 1970s encouraged Caroline to create jewellery that was bolder and responded to the form of the body. By the mid 1980s, her constructions had become increasingly removed from jewellery as she concentrated on conceptual aspects of clothing and installation art. Her work explores value, movement and change in various different materials and it developed into hybrid work in the area between clothing and jewellery. Over time, the concerns of her work have developed to other things that come into contact with or represent the body: shadows, clothing, chairs These have been exhibited internationally.
Caroline started to collaborate with choreographers in 1990 designing for dance and performance, and this allowed her to explore her interest in the way objects inspire gestures in a more dynamic way, integrating design and movement in dance performances. Using space and boundaries between people, to develop atmospheres and emotional responses.
She was awarded the Jerwood Prize for Applied Art: Textiles in 1997.
A number of works have been made in historic buildings, such as the promenade performance, The Waiting Game, made with Angela Woodhouse, in Upnor Castle, Kent, 1997 and installations, Breathing Space, York St Mary’s, 2005 and Above Below in Bath Abbey, 2011.
Caroline's continued interest in jewellery has led her to curate two shows about current practice:
New Tradition, British Crafts Centre, London - 1984
Then and Now, Marsden Woo Gallery, London - 2007
* Quote from an interviewhttp://arts.brighton.ac.uk/faculty-of-arts-brighton/alumni-and-associates/associates-and-alumni/fashion-and-textiles/broadhead,-caroline