The Ceramic Plasticity Symposium will be chaired by De La Warr
Pavillion curator Rosie Cooper with Glenn Adamson, senior scholar
at Yale University and former head of the Museum of Arts and Design
in New York as keynote speaker. Glenn has spent much of his career
highlighting and defining the often-blurred lines of ground
breaking artistry and craft.
The four disciplines within ceramics will be represented by
experts in their fields: Studio pottery by Julian Stair and
Assemble, Contemporary Art by Caroline Achaintre and Florence
Peake, Theory by Glenn Adamson and Dr. David Stent and Conservation
by Bouke de Vries (West Dean alumnus).
Speaker bios:
• Dr. David Stent., artist, writer, curator,
performer and Visual Arts subject leader at West Dean
College.
• Julian Stair, one of the U.K.'s leading potters
will examine the state of contemporary ceramic practice and what
certain changes offer for the future.
• Assemble is a collective based in London who
work across the fields of art, architecture and design. Assemble's
working practice seeks to address the typical disconnection between
the public and the process by which places are made. Assemble won
the Turner Prize in 2015.
• Caroline Achaintre, artist renowned for her
theatrical and grimacing creations made in textiles and ceramics
will discuss Fantomas an exhibition at the De La Warr Pavilion from
January, with ceramics co-commissioned by West Dean College.
• Florence Peake, performance artist and an
artist-in-residence at West Dean College, will speak about her
recent project that has led to various iterations of Stravinsky's
Rite of Spring performed on a stage of wet clay.
• Bouke de Vries, College alumnus and ceramic
conservationist turned artist, best known for his sculptural pieces
that fuse together old with the new.
