The P&O Makower Trust Silver Commission is an exciting opportunity that supports a recently graduated or early career silversmith to create a major piece of silver to go on display at a national museum. In 2023 we announced Na’ama Haneman as the winning commission; her work is now on display in the Silver Galleries at V&A South Kensington, and you can find out more about her practice in this new film we produced for the V&A’s YouTube channel.
Na’ama is a brilliant silversmith whose work explores how the human body and objects interact with each other. In her new work I hear you breathing, she explores the philosophical term ‘Object-Oriented Ontology’, which deals with the idea of objects having their own realities and the ability to interact with each other. This perspective shifts the focus away from just humans and recognises the connections between everything in the world. Inspired by the idea that an object has its own life, will, and behaviours, Haneman chose to give the power of creation to her vessels, by developing a 3D simulation programme which gave her vessels the freedom to act and move. In the programme, her vessels encounter each other in unlimited ways and it allowed her to test how the vessels could meet and change shape in response to each other. She then returned to her workshop and used traditional silversmithing techniques to hammer or raise sheets of silver into her chosen forms, listening and responding to the demands of the metal.
The P&O Makower Trust was set up in 1974 by Pope and Oliver Makower to support new makers as they develop their skills as silversmiths. For 50 years the Trust has regularly commissioned a recent graduate, or early career practitioner, to create a major work in silver for long term loan to a national museum. The commission provides invaluable support for makers as they develop their craft and establish their businesses, as well as providing access to an amazing network, experience of a major commission and exposure in a national collection.
In the 1970s when Oliver Makower wrote to the V&A first asking if a small charitable trust were to ‘make a purchase of a piece of modern silver to be left with the Museum as a long term loan’ our then Director Sir Roy Strong replied saying ‘What a marvellous, generous idea!’. And so began a scheme which has brought into the heart of our galleries a body of work by young silversmiths. Supported and challenged by Pope and Oliver, the makers were given the opportunity to develop their ideas and learn how to work to commission. In the ‘90s the trust expanded who was eligible for the commission from just RCA students to include recent graduates or early career silversmiths, and also began commissioning works for the Crafts Council, National Museum Wales, the Ashmolean and National Museum Scotland. Today the 35 commissions are spread across the V&A, National Museum Wales and National Museum Scotland.
The remit of the commission is to make a new work in silver and over the years silversmiths have interpreted this very differently making works from cutlery to vessels, as well as incorporating other materials including wood and glass. Na’ama’s piece joins work by 18 other makers on long term loan to the V&A from the P&O Makower Trust. Most of these are on display in Gallery 68 of the Silver Galleries and we regularly rotate those in storage out into the gallery.
In November we celebrated 50 years of commissioning by the P&O Makower Trust and the arrival of Na’ama’s commission at the V&A with an in conversation in the lecture theatre between Na’ama and Rebecca de Quin. Rebecca is an established silversmith, metal artist and researcher whose work explores the possibilities for innovation in the use and display of handmade contemporary domestic silverware. Her work Tall and Small in the V&A collection are a pair of vessels that playfully explore scale and proportion by referencing the act of drinking, and is displayed close by to Na’ama’s commission. Rebecca kindly supported Na’ama through the making of the commission and together they discussed Na’ama’s inspiration and the development of the work.
This unique commissioning project by the P&O Makower Trust has brought to our galleries an extraordinary range of work by an internationally recognised group of makers. The Makower Trust’s support of early career makers has been vital in sustaining excellence and innovation in the field and the V&A would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the family for their ongoing commissioning and support of the sector as well as for their significant support of so many museum collections.
I hope you will come and visit Na’ama’s work alongside some of the other commissions at the V&A and enjoy hearing more about her making process in our new film.
