Public Lecture: Simone ten Hompel

Simone ten Hompel with Cranbrook Academy of Art Metalsmithing students during a workshop in November 2023.

Cranbrook Academy of Art’s 2023-24 Public Lecture Series is free and open to the public in the deSalle Auditorium at Cranbrook Art Museum. Cranbrook Art Museum’s galleries are also free and open late on Thursdays. Please arrive early to see their current exhibitions before the lecture.

A metalsmith for over 45 years, Simone ten Hompel is one of the foremost craft artists and educators working in Britain. She is admired for her metalwork and sculptures which challenge how we see domestic objects.

Metal is particular to Simone ten Hompel, her chosen language, in that she not only uses it to make objects for use but also as a way of exploring the different ways that objects define meaning for all of us in contemporary culture. Materiality, form, and function construct meaning which is for front of her to explore in her work. As a metalsmith and artist, Simone is interested in the processes of thinking and making that sit behind objects. Reading them and using that knowledge to explore how that making relates to our contemporary culture. Also, she’s interested in how and what makes students tick and in the collaboration of learning wants to instill ownership of their learning into them.

For over 27 years she’s been teaching at the School of Art, Architecture and Design of London Metropolitan University, where she’s a Reader and supervises students studying PhDs and their MA by Project degree.