What Do Ceramics Want?

Much has been made of the cumulative de-materialisation of our everyday world. The important ephemera for conducting our daily lives, arrives via the kaleidoscopic glare of a screen, as does the glut of equally unimportant ‘digi-matter’ that soaks up our attention. The ensuing effects of marinating perceptions within this digital domain, can possibly provoke fresh consideration for those durable objects in our lives, assigning new values to all things bespoke and unique.

Clay as a medium for fashioning objects that can be both useful and appealing, is old as humanity itself and some have maintained, one of the truest and most enduring means of denoting civilisations and their achievements. Literally made from the dirt under our feet, the ceramic object comes with its own whakapapa, independent of those belonging to architecture, fine arts or design.

This exhibition purposefully sets out to contrast a variety of different contemporary approaches in ceramic production within Aotearoa. By no means definitive, it looks instead to focus on the work of a few individuals. The exhibition title, What Do Ceramics Want? is a cursory indication of the ever-changing role and status that ceramic production has endured through time and a light-hearted allusion to the failures on the part of audiences to which ceramics have been subjected to.

(Richard Fahey)

Download Catalogue