The Precious Clay

Where form and substance are questioned

Role: Project Management and Installation
Location: Worcester
With: Museum of Royal Worcester and Meadow Arts
Date: September 2018 – March 2019

We project managed and installed an exhibition for Meadow Arts and the Museum of Royal Worcester

Meadow Arts and the Museum of Royal Worcester presented an exhibition exploring contemporary art and porcelain, The Precious Clay.

Visitors filling the Exhibition Hall at the opening of The Precious Clay

The exhibition examined why and how artists choose to use this legendary material in their practice, and was an opportunity to see the museum's newly displayed world-class collection through the eyes and imaginations of contemporary artists.

Because of their Artistic Director & Curator, Anne de Charmant, Meadow Arts has forged an incredible reputation within the contemporary art world, always looking for non-conventional ways of displaying art works.

For me, this was really summed up as I directed a high-tech HGV lorry into the museum car park. The dazed driver exited his cab and asked "Where the hell am I and who are you guys?" "Meadow Arts" I replied. "Do you know who I am carrying in the back?" he said. "This stuff only goes to the major galleries of the major cities and this place ain't that!".

Thanks to Meadow Arts, we have now received a fantastic training in handling of major artworks, and how to catalogue and pack.

A large part of our involvement on this project was supporting the artist, Laura White, in building her exhibition piece.

The time spent with Laura was simply awesome. Not only did it give a real insight into the incredible qualities of clay and ways in which the exhibition was interpreting this material, including the new freedoms that 3D printing was enabling, but also conversations lead onto philosophy, life and motivation.

At first glance her work looked like an artist's studio of unfinished pieces waiting to be fired. But as you looked closer you realised what you saw was every day items like a drink bottle morphed with a doll. Laura explained that these 3D printed objects were about challenging how we see everyday objects, and like the pieces, the process is never finished, but forever evolving.

Laura White's installation: tiered shelves and a central table crowded with unglazed white pieces — Laura White

A closer view of the shelves, the pieces reading as a working studio mid-project — Laura White

A 3D-printed jug on the table, an everyday object morphed into something else — Laura White

Laura White

Laura has been teaching on the Fine Art Undergraduate Programme at Goldsmiths since 2006 and is winner of The Ampersand Foundation Fellowship.

Laura's practice focuses on a negotiation with the world of STUFF, i.e. interactions with materials and objects, exploring ideas of value, profile, association, meaning and behavior of materials, individual and collections of objects.

laura-white.co.uk

The mind just bends

Matteo Nasini's pieces on perspex plinths: white 3D-printed cones and cylinders, their surfaces ridged like a recorded waveform — Matteo Nasini

Where clay stored a dream

I couldn't stop absorbing myself into the shapes of the art pieces by Matteo Nasini, which were 3D printed recordings of someone's brain activity during sleep.

The process was explained as wiring a subject's head with sensors. which detect electrical charges. The frequency wave pattern (which is 2 Dimension) is then rolled out onto a 3 Dimension grid, creating lots of 3D waves.

The artist rolls the 3D wave into a cone or cylinder or pot shape, prints it off in clay, and there you have a porcelain object that has literally captured a dream.