A CLITHEROE art gallery curator is preparing for a prestigious research fellowship to southern Asia.

Grace Whowell, 33, co-ordinator at the Platform Gallery in Station Road, Clitheroe, has been selected from curators across the country to take part in the two-week research trip.

Grace, who grew up in Rossendale and lives in Todmorden, will undertake the trip to Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, with 13 curators from museums and galleries throughout the country.

The trip will start in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on December 1 and will include meeting rural craft workers in the Indian sub-continent, as well as taking in the Bangladesh National Museum.

Grace said: "The purpose of the trip is to gain first-hand experience of contemporary crafts sector in the Indian sub-continent and to talk with arts professionals, which will allow us to develop exciting international exhibitions and exchanges with other galleries in the UK.

"We will be looking at the crafts scenes and the part they play in people's lives and culture. Some of those influences will be brought back to Britain, and the Platform Gallery, and used in exhibitions.

"I am thrilled to have been offered the fellowship, which recognises the part being played by the Platform Gallery in craft development in the UK."

Among the craftsmen under the spotlight will be vehicle painters, whose decorated cars have become something of an artform in themselves.