British Ceramics Biennial Opening Night 2011





Sasha and myself arrived in Stoke on Thursday evening for the opening night of the British Ceramics Biennial. It opened to the public on Friday 30th October.

We entered the Spode factory from the Kingsway entrance to find this fantastic hot pink which is running throughout the entire event. Normally I'm not a fan of pink but somehow it seems to work here.




 Spode is Hosting Fresh and REfresh exhibiting recent graduate work and Post graduate research. (Here's a glimpse of my material research shown as part of Refresh)
Throughout the central space there is also The Great Wall which can be seen in the above image showcasing some of the big industries involved within ceramic production ranging from Tableware to Brick.

In the far room work from EKWC is being shown it was in this room I found what I considered to be the strongest pieces of work it left me completely inspired. David Rickard's 'Testflights'  the processes involved the scale and the unpredictability of the work was outstanding. The images below show what originally began as large balls of clay lifted from the ground using a crane and dropped from varying heights. It's fascinating to see the result of work that has been handed over and surrendered to the process involved. It's refreshing to see such work that has a raw energy and lack of preciousness which is often lacking in alot of ceramic work. As ceramicists can often be preoccupied with trying to control this material far too much.



We also bumped into a few fellow Central Saint Martins faces