This weekend, Goldfinger will auction unique and sustainable ceramic snowflakes online for their Snowflake Kitchen project. Created by 40 commissioned artists and creatives, the snowflakes (off-cuts donated by ceramic brand Studio Peover) have been decorated individually and are currently being showcased in the Goldfinger showroom beneath the Trellick Tower in Notting Hill.

Community, collaboration, and compassion are at the heart of this project: bids will start at £25, and 100% of auction proceeds will be donated to Goldfinger Kitchen’s community programme, People’s Kitchen: To Your Door. The money raised will allow Goldfinger to deliver home-cooked hot meals to vulnerable local residents, addressing both food poverty and social isolation.

Goldfinger is an award winning social enterprise, and Snowflake Kitchen comes at a time when socially and community-minded initiatives are needed more than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic has pulled hundreds of thousands of people into poverty: food bank data reports exceptional spikes in demand, with unprecedented numbers of people facing food poverty this Christmas. Through creative collaboration, London-based artists are joining forces to bring food to the doors of the North Kensington community’s most isolated and vulnerable.

With Britain launching the first mass coronavirus vaccination this week, it feels like the colossal mission of tackling the pandemic is finally underway - but it will take more than a vaccine to remedy the social side-effects of the virus. CEO and co-founder of Goldfinger Marie Cudennec Carlisle has said:

“In North Kensington where Goldfinger is based, there is significant inequality and disparity of wealth and opportunity. This is exacerbated by Covid-19 which has increased the number of people experiencing food poverty.”

Marie hopes that this project will show the world that art and design “can and should be planet and people positive”.

Kitchen Snowflake has only been made possible because of generosity, compassion and creativity. Its impact will foster community support and cohesion during what will be, for a lot of people, the weirdest and most isolating Christmas in the books. It is testament to the value and importance of the arts that, at a time when the industry itself is in crisis, creative practitioners can come together and offer vital help to those experiencing food poverty.

Individually decorated ceramic snowflakes are still on display at the Goldfinger showroom, and you can place your bids now on the Goldfinger website.

The auction closes at 9pm on Sunday 13th December.

Words Alice Keeling

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