Future Ecologies of Clay

The challenge addressed by this project is the collecting of expanded clay practices and the ability of UK museums to make them accessible to future audiences; there is currently a significant gap between what is being made and exhibited by contemporary artists working with clay and what is represented in museum collections. Examples of innovative expanded clay practice can be transient or mutable; some involve performance, large-scale installation, or audience activity for their completion. Yet, museums have traditionally prioritized the acquisition of ceramic objects over the complexities of capturing live process-based clay works. Frequently remnants of such works are chosen to represent them but are acknowledged to be of secondary importance. Therefore, although museums regularly nurture expanded clay practices within temporary exhibition and education spaces, they are unable to collect them adequately and ensure the knowledge they hold will be available to future generations. Specific problems posed by the collection of such clay practices have not been directly addressed by recent research into the collection of other challenging fields, where primary concerns have been contemporary performance and digital artworks. The specialist focus proposed here will also bring significant new knowledge to the collection of wider material and hybrid art practices, and fresh perspectives to the collection of new media. The principal aim of this research by the V&A and the CRC-UK is to ensure recent and historical examples of ephemeral, live, performative, site-responsive and participatory works in clay can be identified, explored and analysed in the future. It will open up a new area of discourse in the field of museology concerning the collection and archiving of clay practices that do not result in permanent and tangible objects. Research objectives are to explore: The extent to which established collecting strategies and taxonomies of museums have succeeded or failed to capture recent process-based work in clay What challenges museums face in collecting expanded clay practices, and how identifying these challenges can help to inform the ways in which other art and craft practices are represented to today’s audiences and future generations How clay-based museum collections and archives can represent (document, collect, archive, share) contemporary clay artworks that are not permanent objects How museum curators can support clay artists with the right guidance to take more responsibility for how their works and practice are collected by museums The perspectives of stakeholders, including museum curators and collection managers, artists and educators, will inform a Collection and Archives Strategy Document. This will advance understandings of existing context- specific strategies, structures and practices and meet the objectives of empowering artists and curators to undertake bolder commission and collection negotiations across the UK and internationally. The research involves creating four new models of practice with four museums (including the V&A); as well as serving as case studies, they will provide new content for each museum’s collection. A book of essays will encapsulate the research findings as an original contribution to wider discourses in the fields of the visual arts and museum studies.