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THE BRITISH CERAMICS BIENNIAL (BCB) is celebrating its 8th outing since it launched in 2009. Having been to most of them, I can confirm that it has done a pretty amazing job of articulating the power and potency of ceramics as an artist material, as objects for enhancing our daily life and rituals, as cultural artefacts expressing our history and values, and as a defining feature of its home, Stoke- on-Trent, once the absolute heart of the UK’s ceramics industry.
While the UK has become much more appreciative of the skill required in the creative process, thanks to reality TV programmes like Te Great Pottery
Trowdown (seven series and counting), and ceramic tourism has undoubtedly been boosted as a result, the sense of a once- powerful, ceramic-producing city now struggling to occupy empty warehouses and factories or even animate its high streets prevails, despite the Biennial’s best efforts. But after all, what can a six week festival achieve? Quite a lot, it seems. Tough venues have come and gone, the key format prevails, offering ample opportunities to celebrate existing and new talent, both home grown and international. Te abandoned Spode factory provided the BCB’s home for several outings, but its China Hall has sadly been
declared unsafe for public occupation. While no venue can match it for scale and natural lighting, the BCB’s artistic director and chief executive Clare Wood has come up trumps with this year’s main venue: All Saints Church – a spacious redbrick, arts and crafts chapel, now surplus to its congregational requirements and thus its Diocese has happily made it available for cultural and community use. Te building turns out to have been substantially expanded by and for workers during pottery’s heyday, which makes it even more apt. Here, we encounter the regular Awards showcase: 10 established and emerging makers apply to achieve new
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS
The British Ceramics Biennial has done much to demonstrate the power of clay as a medium for art as well as everyday delight, even if it hasn’t been able to transform the fortunes of the struggling city that hosts it. As an industry showcase, however, its fires are burning brighter than ever this year, finds Veronica Simpson
RIGHT: OSMAN YOUSEFZADA. INTERVENTION (2) CERAMICS, 2022. COURTESY OF AND VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON. PHOTOGRAPHER: THIERRY BAL. THE POTTERIES MUSEUM & ART GALLERY
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