Since 2009, I’ve work­ed with the Brit­ish Ce­ram­ics Bi­en­ni­al, con­trib­ut­ing to cu­ra­to­ri­al, com­mu­ni­ty and ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes.

Held in The Goods Yard, a 19th-cen­tu­ry for­mer ware­house in the heart of Stoke Town, Fresh 2021 ex­hib­it­ed 25 emerg­ing art­ists in con­tem­po­rary ce­ram­ics in the UK and Ireland.

The ex­hi­bi­tion cel­e­brat­ed the unique learn­ing path­ways of each maker, art­ist and de­sign­er. Some dis­cov­ered clay as a child, some whilst study­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty, and others through col­lege and uni­ver­si­ty. They were unit­ed by their in­ten­tion to em­bark on ca­reers with­in the ce­ram­ics field, and by their ex­traor­di­nary achieve­ment.

Three art­ists were award­ed Fresh res­i­den­cy op­por­tu­ni­ties. Dorcas Casey, a sculp­tor in­ter­est­ed in ideas around dreams, sto­ries, in­tu­i­tion and mem­o­ry, will un­der­take a res­i­den­cy at Gul­da­ger­gaard In­ter­na­tion­al Ce­ram­ics Re­search Cen­tre; Nico Conti, whose work em­braces the tra­di­tion and her­it­age of his up­bring­ing in Malta and sees him pair­ing clay with 3D print­ing tech­nol­o­gies, will take up a res­i­den­cy at Staf­ford­shire Uni­ver­sity; and Leora Honey­man’s res­i­den­cy with the Brit­ish Ce­ram­ics Bi­en­ni­al will see her de­vel­op her sculp­tural, ab­stract forms that com­bine clay with dif­fer­ent ma­te­ri­als and mak­ing proc­ess­es.

All the win­ning art­ists from AWARD and Fresh will be in­vit­ed to pres­ent new work in the Brit­ish Ce­ram­ics Bi­en­ni­al 2023.

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Fresh has been a part of the Brit­ish Ce­ram­ics Bi­en­ni­al since the fes­ti­val’s launch in 2009. Dur­ing this first dec­ade, the ex­hi­bi­tion fo­cused on new grad­u­ates from across the UK. The ex­hi­bi­tion se­ries and con­nect­ed re­search sym­po­si­ums were shaped in part­ner­ship with the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion for Ce­ram­ics in High­er Ed­u­ca­tion (NACHE) and pro­vid­ed an im­por­tant plat­form and ad­vo­ca­cy for pro­mot­ing ce­ram­ics in UK ed­u­ca­tion. Below are a se­lec­tion of pho­tos doc­u­ment­ing the Fresh ex­hi­bi­tions at Brit­ish Ce­ram­ics Bi­en­ni­al’s 2015 — 2019 at Spode Works, Stoke-on-Trent.

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