Donna Walker and Talulah Mason

Traces was formed in late 2011 by Donna Walker and Talulah Mason, who shared a passion for collaboration across the creative disciplines, and an interest in creating a fully immersive and interactive art and design event. Donna founded a furniture and spatial design company in 2008, based around the themes of sustainability, re-use, memory and identity and met freelance theatre designer Talulah Mason, who has a passion for site specific, and installation design, whilst working at an immersive theatre company in 2009.  By merging both their skills and interests, they came up with a new concept in art and design showcasing. One which presents the skills of a wide variety of artists and designers from all media, and gets people excited about the possibilities of collaboration – as well as aiming to open up discussions about the way we currently experience art, design, food and sound. For Traces, there’s an authenticity in working in a site specific way. They let the place tell them what to do, in order to give people a new way to experience spaces, and the objects within them. Visitors are given a glimpse into a real but forgotten history of a building that’s not usually open to the public, and go on a journey of discovery and investigation to make up their own stories about those objects. Traces are passionate about narratives, because an object with a story is all the more valuable, and if that story connects in some way to your own, then it can become like an old friend. In short, Traces aims to find a playful way of making the art and design world more accessible to people who would usually feel uncomfortable at an exhibition. Traces wants to give the very newest up and coming artists and designers a way to reach the industry and the public – and the public a new way to experience art and design. Traces takes the best of experiential ‘living museums’, and the re-imagining of spaces that immersive theatre does, and combines it with a cutting edge showcase for artists, furniture and product designers, sound artists, smell artists, food designers, lighting technicians, architects, and the media. Together they produce pieces inspired by the narrative of the place; a physical memoir. A combination of theatre, history, intrigue, and the very latest in gorgeous and evocative design, it’s the new and most enjoyable way to discover new talent, with the possibility of bagging yourself a beautiful and unique object along the way.