35th California Conference for the Advancement of Ceramic Arts

10.30 – 11.10

Rhiannon Ewing-James, Creative Producer, British Ceramics Biennial

Community of Practice – National Association for Ceramic Educators

The National Association for Ceramic Educators (NACE) is at a pivotal moment in practice and seeking to grow it’s community of practice. NACE is intended as a platform for ceramic education across the UK and Ireland and bringing focus to the rich and diverse learning opportunities which are shaping ceramics today. Join British Ceramics Biennial Creative Producer in talking about NACE, it’s next steps and how you can be involved in mobilising our clay community of educators.

11.30 – 12.30

Paul Greenhalgh

A Larger Vessel: Ceramic and Contemporary Civilisation

Tony Ainsworth Memorial Lecture

Ceramic – by its very nature – has always occupied a particular space in the cultural and social scheme of things. This talk will take this idea and make suggestions as to what its role could and should be now.

Professor Paul Greenhalgh is Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation in London. His previous roles have included Director of the Sainsbury Centre and Head of Research V&A Museum. Alongside this, he has taught in a number of countries and published widely on the history of art and design.

1.00 – 2.00

Tessa Peters

Doing It Together! Public participation and performance within contemporary clay practice

Ceramic art is often thought to be the outcome of solitary endeavour by individual practitioners, but over the past decade or so many clay artists have developed more socially engaged practices. This talk considers recent examples, their political, educational and aesthetic ambitions, and the potential benefits and possible limitations.

Tessa Peters is an independent curator and educator, a Senior Lecturer at the Ceramics Research Centre-UK, University of Westminster, and an Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins.

2.30 – 3.30

C J O’Neill

Material Connections

C J O’Neill Works with silhouettes and stories in combination with ceramics from found objects to 3D printed clay. Course leader for BA(Hons) Product Design & Craft at Manchester School of Art, O’Neill has recently specialised in site specific, residency-based projects.

O’Neill will offer insights to her process of making with others through which objects emerge as a result of meaningful connections. Responding to material, people and context she will demonstrate the contribution of the sometimes unseen others in the work we do and the people we become.

4.00 – 5.00

Smogware in conversation with Sara Howard

Projects that focus on climate emergency

Annemarie Piscaer and Iris de Kievith started Lab AIR, a design collective based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, focused on making the abstract problems that take place in the air visible and experienceable. Their first project is Smogware, which started in Rotterdam and then expanded to other cities. In collaboration with Rosy Napper and Jo Pearl they curated the exhibition ON AIR in the hall of the Crossing @ CAL 2022 using ceramics as a medium to raise awareness of air quality.

Sara Howard is an award-winning ceramic designer and materials researcher, whose practice is focused on reducing the environmental and societal impacts of ceramic production. Sara graduated from Central St. Martins in 2020, studying BA Honours Degree in Ceramic Design. In her final year, Sara designed an industrial symbiosis around the ceramics industry, whereby waste from one industry replaces the raw materials in ceramic production. Sara’s methods and processes are shared in her book, Circular Ceramics, allowing fellow ceramicists to adopt the sustainable processes in their own practice. Currently, Sara is collaborating with ceramic producers and mass manufacturers to implement the use of industrial waste on a larger scale.

10.30 – 11.10

Kate Malone

FiredUp4

This talk will discuss the importance and benefits of clay and introduce Kate’s project FiredUp4 which is trying to create more ceramic studios across the country for young people. Besides her studio practice, this is a lifetime commitment.

At the end of 2019, she invited 30 makers to donate their own work for an auction to raise funds to equip and staff ceramic studios inside two OnSide Youth Zones. This was the birth of FiredUp4, now bringing clay into the hands of hundreds of young people in Wigan and Chorley.

Kate Malone, MBE is one of the UK’s leading ceramic artists. From studios in Kent and London; Kate works in three areas: decorative studio ceramics, public art and glaze research. A judge on seasons 1 & 2 of the BBC’s The Great Pottery Throw Down, in 2019 she was awarded an MBE for services to ceramic art.

11.30 – 12.30

Lawrence Epps

Hidden Treasure – acts of acquisition and disrupting the rules of the gallery

Lawrence Epps works with ceramics in a conceptual way. He has a track record for thoughtful, beautifully executed work involving his audience and disrupting the accepted rules of the gallery experience.

He will discuss a range of his most recent projects exploring the nature of chance, success and our relationships to objects of value. Working with ‘the low status and dirty material of clay’ in combination with industrial processes such as extrusion and casting, Epps’ installations ‘invite reflections on conformity, desire and acts of acquisition’.

1.00 – 2.00

Dr Guan Lee

Digital Manual – innovation and experimentation with sustainability of crafts and materials

Dr Guan Lee is a lecturer in architecture and co-founder of Grymsdyke Farm, set in the village of Lacey Green, Bucks, which engages in a wide range of experimental fabrication techniques. Its aim is to design between processes of making and sustainability.

Digital Manual is an ongoing research project which investigates new methods of manufacturing architectural components using different composite materials including clay, while questioning their technological context in the sphere of social sustainability. At Grymsdyke Farm context, place and human skill-based techniques are equally important in an increasingly automated design-manufacturing industry.

2.30 – 3.30

Christie Brown

Untold Forms of Life – conversations with material

Christie Brown offers an overview of her many years of figurative ceramic practice in relation to museum collections, including the Freud Museum, the Museum of Childhood, and most recently the Potteries Museum in Stoke, as part of the BCB 2019. An active member of the CRC-UK she will also reflect on their recent symposium Clay Across Cultures, in the context of the exhibition Beyond the Vessel in Istanbul.

Brown is an artist and Emerita Professor of Ceramics at the University of Westminster. Her work is featured in several private and public collections in Europe and the USA.

4.00 – 5.00

Professor Steve Dixon

Ceramics, narrative and commemoration

The presentation will outline the development of Steve Dixon’s creative process across thirty-three years of ceramic practice, as maker, curator and academic at Manchester School of Art, examining the unique potential of ceramics as a material for narrative and commemoration. Recent projects have focused on issues of conflict and explored strategies of collaboration and co-creation to ‘materialise’ the experience of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.

Professor Dixon will be giving his talk remotely via video link

11.30 – 12.30

Simeon Featherstone

Keeping it Local with Clay

Simeon reflects on his continued ceramic practice and role as creative facilitator of public art projects in the UK. Using clay to make connections between people and their local environment, he explores how different models of practice can support stronger and healthier communities

Simeon Featherstone develops mixed-scale ceramic artworks in a variety of local settings through his practice, Parasite Ceramics.He also supervises clay activities at MAKE, a new Central Saint Martins’ site working with the local communities of Camden.

1.00 – 2.00

Ceramic Review presents: Adam Nathaniel Furman in conversation with Corinne Julius

Adam Nathaniel Furman trained as an architect, but he now practices largely as an artist and designer with designs varying in scale from mugs and vases to ceramic colonnades and tiled pedestrian underpasses in city centres. Obsessed with ceramics from an early age, he is passionate about bringing art into the public realm in a way that is relatable, non-intimidating and practical. He discusses his wide-ranging practice taking ceramic designs to new heights and pushing the boundaries of possibilities, with journalist, broadcaster and curator, Corinne Julius.

2.30 – 3.30

Sue Pryke

Ceramics, craft and industry

Pryke has a passion for tableware; she works simultaneously across several scales of production, from her own slip-casting practice, to designing for industry giants. She delivers pared back simple forms that are about function and utility, but at the same time imbue familiarity and warmth. Her style is derived from a mix of traditional British tableware design from experience as a designer at Wedgwood to working with IKEA.

Sue Pryke has been working within the tableware industry for 25 years, collaborating with volume producers and high street retailers, as well as making small scale studio work for independent shops and galleries. She is currently a judge on The Great Pottery Throwdown.