24.06.26: CONFERENCE QUESTIONS & COMMENTS

Process and image (representation) are often seen as incompatible; one must be privileged over the other. Watching Florence work I was impressed by how the two seemed inextricable from each other: the forms she created were both performance residues and representations. It makes me wonder how she sees the relationship between process and form in her practice?

Florence, your practice foregrounds the body as 'site', how might one approach the collection of the very personal - is that possible?

(Clare Twomey)

I love Hanna's statement that "to live with clay" – not ceramics, but clay! – “has always meant to care for clay." Fired ceramics is so often associated with strength, endurance, hardness, and finality of form. Hanna reminds us that, while we associate the fluidity and informé of unfired clay with contemporary artistic experimentation, traditional practices like adobe require a generational investment in the replenishment and reactivation of raw clay. (By the way – an adobe artwork by the fantastic ceramicist Gabriel Chaile is currently on view at Whitechapel.)

I’m trying to formulate my question… something about acknowledging we have so much to talk about (demonstrated by the density of the programme and how wonderful it looks) and is that because we’ve been waiting for a certain planetary alignment that brought this conference into being? What is causing an in depth discussion about the expanded field of clay to happen now? Why does clay practice feel so relevant and urgent?

 Both Florence and Hanna’s talks flagged that ‘Clay invites us to recognise it as an active participant rather than as passive material’ which must surely resonate deeply with any artist working with the material as we in turns allow it to have its way and struggle to get it to cooperate!  I’m wondering if we think the same is true of all materials to varying degrees or  extremes? It calls to mind Orhan Pamuk’s novel ‘ My Name is Red’ and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s ‘ Braiding Sweetgrass’  in  both non human subjectivities are elucidated in poetic and magical ways!  Thank you for an amazing day! 

Q for Hanna Holling/Pip Laurenson:

You made the observation that often artworks which leave the slightest trace materially can have a significant presence in the archive. Can you say more about why you think this is the case?

For Pip Laurenson - I was intrigued and delighted by your suggestion of conservation for Clare Twomey’s ‘Factory’ perhaps requiring relationship management in the form of identifying a future artisanal flower maker. I think the greatest challenges for the preservation of ephemeral clay artworks arise when they embody high levels of craft skill. I wonder if you have any further thoughts on this particular conundrum?For Pip Laurenson - I was intrigued and delighted by your suggestion of conservation for Clare Twomey’s ‘Factory’ perhaps requiring relationship management in the form of identifying a future artisanal flower maker. I think the greatest challenges for the preservation of ephemeral clay artworks arise when they embody high levels of craft skill. I wonder if you have any further thoughts on this particular conundrum?

If artwork had a lifespan or death date would its value go up on the approach of its death? 

would we consider it similar to a saint on its deathbed and to be in its presence before its demise? 

Does reclaimed and recycle material hold the visceral energy of the previous work? Will this be present when past onto another artist to use? Thinking specifically to Florence’s reclaimed clay and materials agency and right to be heard?

I would like Hanne to give me a further reading list!

A question for Florence Peake - Do you ever perform with your fired clay pieces? How does your relationship to clay's agency and materiality shift once your collaborator has changed states? Thank you to all the speakers!

I loved Florence’s insight that clay’s exuberance and muscularity opens a space of resistance. I’m wondering how this idea might transcend a particular performance and how the spatial resonances of clay practices, beyond their literal manifestations, might be captured? 

Hanna mentioned the two way path between artwork↔️archive today -what about the relevance of artist↔️archivist today? 

many thanks for today 

I wonder whether clay (especially unfired) invites us to think of value in terms of what can be sustained — knowledge, relationships, practices, and the capacity for renewal. And perhaps our interest in the ephemeral reflects a growing awareness of our own fragility, and a need to imagine resilience not through permanence but through adaptation and care.

To Emily can you expand on how emergent participatory artists can gain the trust from curators and institutions to work with them?