Studio Days: Ceramics & Glass
Year 9 pupils from St Michael’s Catholic Grammar School worked with Trine to explore the materiality of clay – playfully testing what the material can do when poured or stretched, for instance, and led by their senses, particularly touch.
Trine began by showing and discussing her work, in particular the video Haptic which documents a performance in which members of a museum audience are invited to join Trine in touching, holding and drinking or eating from her ceramic vessels. Trine is fascinated by the senses and using ceramics and other unconventional materials – often food – to encourage and explore social encounters through art. In this way, her works are experimental, not only in how they are experienced by viewers – or rather participants – but also in the ways that they are produced: process – chance and uncontrollability – is a crucial aspect to her practice and she often sets up experiments in order to achieve playful, unexpected outcomes, all of which informed the activities during the Studio Day.
First, pupils were led through a series of exercises in which they made quick experiments (what Trine calls ‘sketches’) in clay, responding to touch, then smell and, lastly, sound. For each of the activities there were instructions like describe, throw or drip the slurry or liquid clay. The young people were invited to work in pairs, and the emphasis was on the physical and emotional experience of working the material with their hands/bodies.
Then, everyone was welcomed into the Ceramics and Glass department by Head of Programme Felicity Aylieff. The pupils were shown around the individual studio spaces and collaborative workshops and then they saw final designs and objects in the Work in Progress show.
After lunch, further experimentation was encouraged and explored when pupils used cornflakes, flour, honey and other food ingredients as materials. They picked a word and made a response for a series of ‘sketches in food’. Each unexpected outcome inspired the next experiment, and the different materials and processes explored and demonstrated the intrinsic value of working intuitively with clay.