In a pioneering collaboration between the University of Westminster’s Ceramics Research Centre UK (CRC UK) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), a new Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded research initiative, Future Ecologies of Clay, has officially launched.
Future Ecologies of Clay addresses the challenges of UK museums in collecting ephemeral, live, performative, site-specific and participatory works in clay. The project seeks to ensure that artworks in the ‘expanded field of clay’ can be identified, explored and analysed in the future.
Context
Future Ecologies of Clay is a three-year collaborative project between the V&A and the Ceramics Research Centre-UK at the University of Westminster. Bringing together artistic, academic and curatorial expertise from the two teams, the project will examine the significant gap between what is being made and exhibited by contemporary artists working with clay, and what is represented in museum collections. It will address the challenge of collecting artworks in the expanded field of clay and the ability of UK museums to make them accessible and visible to future audiences.
The project is led by Professor Clare Twomey, Artist, Researcher and Curator at the University of Westminster, Phoebe Cummings, Artist and Research Associate, and Tessa Peters, Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Art, in partnership with Alun Graves, Senior Curator in Ceramics and Glass from 1900-now, Department of Decorative Art and Sculpture at the V&A. The team also includes Lily Crowther, Research fellow (UoW), Natalie Baerselman le Gros, Research Fellow (V&A) and Christie Brown, Artist and Emeritus Professor as project advisor.
The initiative is part of the CREAM research centre – a world leading centre and pioneer in practice-based, critical, theoretical and historical research in the broad areas of art, creative and interdisciplinary practice. The V&A is a family of museums dedicated to the power of creativity. Their mission is to champion design and creativity in all its forms, advance cultural knowledge and inspire makers, creators and innovators everywhere.
Aim
Running for three years, the project aims to radically rethink how UK museums collect, document and share clay practices in the expanded field, which are works that go beyond traditional ceramic objects to include live performance, participatory and site responsive art.
The aim of this research is to ensure recent and historical examples of ephemeral, live, performative, site-specific and participatory works in clay can be identified, explored and analysed in the future. It will identify challenges and gaps in existing collecting strategies and taxonomies in museums and suggest how artists and curators can increase the representation of contemporary clay artworks that are not tangible, permanent objects. We aim to open up a new area of discourse in the field of museology concerning the collecting and archiving of the expanded field of clay practices.
Outcomes
Outcomes will include: a project website to facilitate discussion and idea generation; a ‘long conference’ comprising a series of seminars supporting knowledge transfer and exploration; a Collections and Archives Strategy Document that supports artists and curators in the collection and preservation of non-permanent clay artworks; four new artworks developed as case studies of ephemeral, site-specific, participatory and live clay practice with four UK museums, including the V&A; and publication of histories, case studies, research findings, journal articles and conference papers.
This work is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council [grant number UKRI748]. The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funds world-class researchers in a wide range of arts and humanities areas, from philosophy and the creative industries to art conservation and product design. AHRC’s research addresses some of society’s biggest challenges such as tackling modern slavery and understanding the ethical implications of artificial intelligence. It also drives growth in the creative economy, and reveals new stories from the national collections held in the UK’s world-renowned museums and galleries.
Project Team
Project co-lead Clare Twomey is a British artist, researcher, and curator (b. 1968) who lives and works in London, UK. Since the 1990s, she has developed a body of work exploring the social, historical, and material dimensions of clay and ceramic production. Working across installation, participation, and performance, her practice has been instrumental in shaping contemporary understandings of clay as a site of social engagement. She contributes to critical discourse through research, writing, and curating. She was awarded an MBE for Services to Art in 2022. Twomey has exhibited internationally, including at Tate Modern, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Academy of Arts, Museum of Modern Art Kyoto, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Yale Center for British Art, the Crafts Council, and the Eden Project.
Project co-lead Phoebe Cummings is an artist and Research Associate at the University of Westminster. She studied Three-Dimensional Crafts at the University of Brighton before completing an MA in Ceramics & Glass at the Royal College of Art in 2005. She has undertaken a number of artist residencies, in the UK, USA and Greenland, including a three-month Arts/Industry residency at the Kohler Co. factory, Wisconsin (2008) and six months as ceramics artist-in-residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2010). Cummings was selected as the winner of the British Ceramics Biennial Award (2011) and was the inaugural winner of the Woman’s Hour Craft Prize (2017). Recent exhibitions include Pallant House Gallery (2024) and Thomas Dane Gallery, Naples (2022).
Project co-lead Tessa Peters is a senior lecturer in the history and theory of art at the University of Westminster School of Arts. She is part of CREAM, a member of the University’s Ceramics Research Centre and a supervisor on the graduate programme. Her research interests include the study of participatory art projects and points of crossover between art forms. She also works as an independent curator on exhibitions that frequently include a participatory dimension, and she writes about contemporary art, with a particular interest in clay-based practice.
Project co-lead Alun Graves is Senior Curator, Ceramics and Glass 1900–now, in the Decorative Art and Sculpture Department at the V&A, London. He is the author of Studio Ceramics: British Studio Pottery 1900 to Now (Thames & Hudson, 2023) and has written widely on 20th and 21st-century British ceramics and sculpture. He has curated many exhibitions including ‘Alison Britton: Content and Form’ (V&A, 2016), ‘Simon Carroll: Expressionist Potter’ (V&A / Ruthin Craft Centre, 2014–5), and with Sarah Griffin, ‘Material Language: New Work in Clay’ (New Art Centre, Salisbury, 2016).
Research fellow Lily Crowther is a curator specialising in 19th– and 20th-century craft and design, currently working at Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum alongside her role at the University of Westminster. Her research explores the roles of museums and collections in the transmission of embodied knowledge and skill; she is completing a doctorate at the V&A and the University of Oxford entitled ‘Building Knowledge: experiments with collections at the Museum of Construction & Building Materials’.
Research fellow Natalie Baerselman le Gros is a PhD student at the University of East Anglia studying ‘The Abstract Vessel: defining ‘vesselism’ in the New British Ceramic (1955-1995)’. She is a curator, editor and writer and has worked with important ceramic collections at the Sainsbury Centre and the Crafts Council. Natalie recently authored Gordon Baldwin: Inscape (2025) and has written for various publications and galleries.
Project advisor Christie Brown is an artist and Emerita Professor of Ceramics at the University of Westminster, London. She graduated from Harrow School of Art in 1982 and set up her north London studio that year. At Westminster she taught on the BA, MA and PhD programmes whilst developing her sculptural practice. She co-founded the Ceramics Research Centre-UK at Westminster and is currently an advisor on the AHRC-funded project Future Ecologies of Clay. Brown is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors and is represented by Messums.org. Her retrospective exhibition ‘Significant Beings’ will be held in October 2026 at Messums West, Wiltshire.
Project administrator Sophia Matthews is an early career researcher. She holds an MSc in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a BA in International Relations from Brown University. Her role at Westminster sits across the Future Ecologies of Clay and Crisis of Migration Discourse projects. Sophia is an avid craftsperson with a particular interest in ceramics and textiles and has published creative non-fiction writing on textile ecologies.