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The Boundaries of Ceramics

...once this process becomes social, the ‘aesthetic’ is considered more as a form of knowledge relevant and communicable amongst a collective, or spheres of understanding. Art practice becomes about the social articulation of aesthetic experience.

The Hospitality
of Clay

The role of the artist therefore, is to welcome conversations, to practice a kind of reciprocity, an openness, to exert a kind of hospitality to our relationships with ‘things’..

Conference Presentation and Demo:
Center of Ceramic Art:
Restating Clay 2018

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Civic
Ceramics

These artists are a new breed of ceramicists, with a plurality of skill base that extends far beyond their own studio in order to facilitate movement between personal and wider social concerns.

Civic Ceramics 'Ceramics Reader' Bloomsbury 2017

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Sensory
Anthropology

 

Taking the domestic object as our site of exploration offered the possibility of not only re-visiting our sensory world, but discovering rich layers of complexity and depth beneath our familiar daily experience... It was astounding to discover the significance of the theme for such a wide spectrum of disciplines from dance, theatre, psychology to anthropology.

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The Sensorial Object 2016

Claire Prosser: 'If Movement was an object' applied to Edmund De Waal's Porcelain Wall and Lidded Jar
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Claire Prosser: 'If Movement was an object' applied to Edmund De Waal's Porcelain Wall and Lidded Jar

If movement was an object. If a movement¹ was [is] an object² what would [does] [will] it look like? ¹ incident, activity, rhythm, idea, ethereal. ²artefact, archive, record, document, solid, ever-present. Claire’s practice often playfully challenges systems and hierarchy, bringing forward basic functions of ‘being human’ that we can all relate to. During her residency at St Fagans Museum of Welsh Life, Claire worked closely with members of staff, recording repetitive actions that have been learnt from someone else, that are repeated every day, and in some way connect them physically and mentally to St Fagans. Her research and meticulously, almost ridiculously, archived movements have spanned in such a way from her time spent with archivists and curators. The fragments of movements that have been collected, just like the historic buildings, have be transplanted to a new space, as she collaborates with Expressions Dance Company, ready to be reconstructed. But can movement be archived, how present are we, can movement become objectified?
Natasha Mayo: The Iron in our Blood: The Ethos for Vicarious Wednesdays as part of the Centre of Ceramics Art: Restating Clay Conference
The Sensorial Object: Duck Egg Bleu
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The Sensorial Object: Duck Egg Bleu

REFLECTIONS ON MATERIALS, PROCESS AND SPACE It begins with changing the menu I suppose, well maybe not, it’s a process . . . I’ve got a little black book where I write all my ideas down and that idea might not take shape straight away. There are dishes that I’ve come up with five years ago that I still haven’t made . . . they’re ideas. I like taking dishes that are classics and making them a little bit quirky like the ham, eggs, chips and peas. So when you order it you’re not going to know what you’re getting. It’s about doing something that surprises people a little bit. The walnut idea … the whole thing is edible. It looks like a walnut, and tastes like a walnut and is filled with something else. It’s about trying to change textures of things for me. We’ve got a carrot dish on the menu, its different textures of carrot, so we’ve got jelly, we’ve got smoked, we’ve got pickled, we’ve got sorbet, we’ve got a carrot breadcrumb. We try and put a twist on the textures rather than flavors. I like hot and cold together; I like the textures I like the mouth-feel of it, and that’s what we try and create. The sperification of mango with white chocolate brulee wrapped around it . . . we use quite technical equipment sometimes, calcium chloride and sodium alginate. We make a water bath out of a little bit of salt, calcium chloride and distilled water. We suck the air out of it and then we make a mango puree. We put sodium alginate in that and again we suck the air out of that, then using a melon baller sort of thing – canela they are called – we tip it into the calcium chloride and it forms an outer skin around it. It forms a ball, when you bite into that ball the flavor of the mango pours out. We gently – because its very fragile – gently put the mango sphere into the egg shell and then top it up with the crème brulee and let it set, and that’s the desert so when you stick your spoon into the egg it’ll break the yoke that’s in the middle just like an egg . . . if all goes to plan. The other chefs here have exactly the same knife for every day kind of jobs; it seems a bit silly but I can’t actually use Sam’s knife I feel like I’m going to cut my finger. His knife feels slightly different to mine in my hand. When I come into the kitchen in the morning first thing I make is a cup of coffee, I get into a routine with things. So on a Tuesday for instance we generally in the morning will crack on with the sauces … the first thing I do will be to start the sauces. Some things have to be done earlier than others …

Vernacular

of

Clay

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So, the act of writing, drawing, making can be interrogative, framing and re-framing the perspective from which the concrete is viewed. Metaphor and pose, can be used as a lens to view the familiar and enable us to see it anew.

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In Conversation Event: Material Presence: Zoe Preece

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