FACTORY. Exhibited in - Ceramics Now, Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza

BROWNSWORD, Neil (2018) FACTORY. Exhibited in - Ceramics Now, Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza. [Artefact]

Preview	Image (FACTORY, installed at Ceramics Now, Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza) IMG_5284.jpg - Supplemental Material Available under License All Rights Reserved. Download (1MB) | Preview
	Text (Catalogue image Biolchini, I., Cassali, C., Ceramics Now, Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza, 2018. ISBN 978-88-96427-96-5. P. 40-41) 60PremioFaenza_Interno-Brownsword.pdf - Supplemental Material Restricted to Repository staff only Available under License All Rights Reserved. Download (272kB) | Request a copy
	Text (Exhibition text from Ceramics Now, Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza website, 2018) 378-ceramics-now-the-faenza-prize-is-80-years-old.php - Supplemental Material Restricted to Repository staff only Available under License All Rights Reserved. Download (44kB) | Request a copy

Abstract or description

Dissemination context:
Brownsword was one of fifty-three artists selected by a panel of seventeen international curators, invited to exhibit at 60th Faenza Prize, Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche Faenza, Italy. The ‘Competition of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Faenza Prize’ has been a long-standing event which has celebrated the ceramic work of international artists. Two components from Brownsword’s solo exhibition FACTORY at Icheon World Ceramic Centre, South Korea (22/04- 28/05/17), were curated to represent ‘the most significant ceramic art researches created by both international masters and young talents’ (sic). Work comprised of a low-level plinth onto which discarded bone-china flowers resultant from Brownsword’s intervention into ex-industry artisan Rita Floyd’s craft, were installed; wall plinth housing deconstructed post-industrial materials salvaged from former factories presented as a formal taxonomy to re-attribute value to displaced labour in North Staffordshire; a film loop of once prominent sites of ceramic manufacture being reclaimed by nature (2016).

Curators of the Biennale included - Sandra Benadretti, Luca Bochicchio, Irene Biolchini, Claudia Casali, Monika Gass, Wendy Geers, Grant Gibson, Tomo Hirai, Jacques Kaufmann, Torbjorn Kvasbo, Alessandra Laitempergher, Elaine Olafson Henry, Jelena Popovic, Urmas Puhkan, Vittorio Amedeo Sacco, Nathalie Shu-ling Chiang, Marco Tonelli.

Competition of Contemporary Ceramic Art, “Faenza Prize”, is the long-lasting and remarkable recognition in the world of ceramic art. Starting from 1938, it became a fundamental event firstly for Italian ceramic Art and then, from 1964, for the international context, in 1989 it became a biennial event. It has been fundamental to allow people to understand that ceramics is not only for functional creations but it is a material for contemporary art. During its life the Faenza Prize has represented the works by great artists such as Lucio Fontana, Leoncillo Leonardi, Angelo Biancini, Guido Gambone, Pietro Melandri, Carlo Zauli, Eduard Chapallaz, Sueharu Fukami, who determined great changes in the history of sculpture and art in general.

The 60th edition is a great opportunity to create a special event testifying its aim and essence. The 60th Faenza Prize, for the first time of its history, will be a great exhibition supported by international curators responsible for selecting and inviting artists from all over the world. From 30th June to 14th October 2018 Faenza will house the most significant ceramic art researches created both by international masters and young talents.

“The project of this Biennale has been shared by several art critics who have been working for years, taking into consideration international ceramic competitions and exhibitions. The Faenza Prize is known worldwide and has always been an opportunity for sharing art experiences and stimulate the dialogue – explains Claudia Casali MIC Director – to celebrate this unique goal, all the curators decided to carry on a deep reflection on the meaning of ceramic sculpture today. As I underlined several times, in the latest 15 years ceramics has been showing important results, reaching great objectives. The new generation of artists are working on new experimentations, joining the different art media and materials. It is the aspect that we want to enhance through our work, our convictions and activities”.

The exhibition will be flanked by a Congress arranged at MIC by ICMEA, International Association of Editors of Ceramic art, where many artists, curators and journalists will discuss about contemporary ceramics.’
Taken from: http://www.micfaenza.org/en/mostre/378-ceramics-now-the-faenza-prize-is-80-years-old.php

Item Type:	Artefact
Additional Information:	FACTORY is a performative installation that reflects upon notions of place, skill, people and material objects left behind following the process of industrial change. In Stoke-on-Trent, global outsourcing together with high yield production technologies, have substituted many of the people embodied skills that once sustained company leadership. Like many hand skills in the ceramic industry, dexterity is transmitted from generation to generation. As the tertiary or service sector has largely replaced traditional manufacturing, there now exists a significant skills gap, and with few apprenticeships a danger of specialist knowledge disappearing. Following the legacy of William Morris and the Arts and Craft Movement in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, much attention has been paid to the preservation of vernacular crafts. Since these neo-traditionalists remained diametrically opposed to industrialisation, they also marginalised the know-how of those employed in factories, albeit sometimes unintentionally. In 2003 UNESCO implemented a convention to safeguard intangible cultural heritage. 171 countries have now endorsed this convention, effectively making Intangible Heritage part of their cultural policy, but this value system remains alien to the UK. ‘Any efforts to safeguard traditional craftsmanship must focus not on preserving craft objects - no matter how beautiful, precious, rare or important they might be - but on creating conditions that will encourage artisans to continue to produce crafts of all kinds, and to transmit their skills and knowledge to others’. FACTORY re-evaluates explicit systems of know-how, specific to North Staffordshire’s ceramic industry….By bringing contrasting modes of ceramic manufacture into the gallery space, the live transmission of these actions enables rare access to haptic and material knowledge. They will work, and not be celebrated as nostalgic demonstrators of pure skill constructed for heritage tourism. To accentuate these overlooked forms of intelligence, Neil Brownsword adopts numerous strategies that disrupt prescriptive routines of skill cultivated by instruction. Insights that stem from his own employment history at the Wedgwood factory, inform the re-choreography of these complex rules to expose tacit procedures that include nuances of preparation and quality control.
Faculty:	School of Creative Arts and Engineering > Art and Design
Event Title:	Ceramics Now
Event Location:	The International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, Viale Baccarini n. 19, 48018 Faenza (RA), Italy
Event Dates:	30 June - 14 October 2018
Depositing User:	Neil BROWNSWORD
Date Deposited:	04 Jun 2019 09:53
Last Modified:	24 Feb 2023 13:54
URI:	https://eprints.staffs.ac.uk/id/eprint/5292

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