London Craft Week: Ancient Futures: Basketmakers Weaving a New World
The oldest crafts are sometimes the most radical. Think of a basket: formed from plants pulled from the earth, shaped by hand, and guided by the logic of material rather than machine, it carries within it a whole philosophy of making. But can an object so deeply rooted in agricultural tradition (think muddy hands and seasonal labour) also feel genuinely forward-thinking? This London Craft Week, a gathering of natural fibre artists and basketmakers across the city asks us to look again at these ancient practices, and to recognise in them not nostalgia, but vision.
Studio Amos hand woven pottles and gathering baskets, made from home-grown willow.
The case is made boldly at The New Craftmaker's Pimlico Road showroom, where Studio AMOS, the East Sussex practice of Irish basketmaker Annemarie O'Sullivan and designer Tom McWalter, present Settle, their most ambitious collection to date. Running across May and June 2026, the works emerge from materials Annemarie grows and harvests herself: around twenty varieties of willow cultivated on a half-acre plot, supplemented by rush, straw, and heather gathered from the surrounding landscape.
Annemarie O'Sullivan and Tom McWalter of Studio Amos, hands sorting, teasing and gathering lengths of willow.
Through baling, carving, weaving, and entangling, these fibres are shaped by hand into lighting, stools, a chair, and baskets. These are forms guided by texture, weight, and balance rather than trend or convenience. On 13 May, Annemarie and Tom will be in conversation at the showroom, speaking to the philosophies that drive their practice. What emerges from their work is a blueprint for making that was carbon-conscious long before the terminology existed...
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Image Credits:
Lead: Irish basketmaker Annemarie O'Sullivan and designer Tom McWalter.
All images courtesy of the artists and London Craft Week.