Visualising Complex Material Trajectories through Creative Ceramic Practice
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2017-05-06

Influenced by recent archaeological approaches to the contemporary past, I regard my creative practice as a proactive intervention in which otherwise unconstituted narratives of person-object interaction are materialised through the creation of enduring ceramic art objects. My work exploits the archival potential of fired clay, usually incorporating digital photographic imagery as surface decoration.
While not intended as direct visualisations of specific artefacts, my artworks often attempt to represent the complex material trajectories of particular museum collections or assemblages through a synthesis of form and contextual information. By constituting new things, this process may contribute to, as well as visualise, the archaeological record.
This will be illustrated by reference to two bodies of recent ceramic work.
The George Brown Series of porcelain vessels was made in response to the George Brown Collection of Oceanic material culture at the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan. Described as one of the most mobile collections in the world, my work attempts to represent something of this contested and convoluted history. The Setomonogatari series was made during and since an art residency in the traditional pottery community of Seto, Japan. This work explores the site’s changing materiality through a process of collage and synthesis. Abandoned plaster moulds have been reanimated through reuse, while discarded ceramic objects are repurposed and integrated into the works. These act as reminders of the tacit and often undervalued stories of person-object interaction and labour that lead to the formation of material culture.

Christopher McHugh, University of Sunderland