Alchemy and Metamorphosis

Alchemy and Metamorphosis (2021/22) is a multimedia exhibition developed for the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in conjunction with the 7th British Ceramic Biennial (BCB). At its core, it questions the privileging of object-embodiments of knowledge by cultural institutions through a range of interventions. It is underpinned by contexts of expanded curation that position the ‘exhibition’ as a discursive space (Rogoff, 2007), where the production of knowledge from open-ended modes of engagement and collaboration is mediated through an assembly of formats and intermediary activities (Szakács, 2012).

Adopting alternative analytical methods to ceramic historiography (Greenhalgh, 2001), Brownsword steers away from dominant curatorial narratives of industrialisation and employs a plural discourse that deconstructs historic objects into their constituent parts. Through its assembly of reserve collections from a range of regional museums (V&A Wedgwood, PMAG, Spode, Brampton Museum), Brownsword curates a timeline of ceramic innovations from c.1660–1800, demonstrating innovation and ingenuity in early proto-manufacture. Alongside this, industrial archaeology, geological specimens (pertaining to ceramic materiality), and the live performance of skilled practices offer new insights into the material and social complexities of ceramic manufacture.

Brownsword’s mobilization of former industrial artisans to re-enact ‘disruptions’ of their former craft practices in a cultural space aims to recuperate tacit and embodied knowledge displaced by globalisation. By foregrounding near-obsolete factory craft skills in a contemporary art context, Alchemy and Metamorphosis diverts attention from the commodities preserved by museums to valorise manual actions that institutional connoisseurship has largely ignored. By re-inscribing marginalized forms of specialist knowledge through a process of restored behaviour (Schechner, 2012), Brownsword transforms ‘re-creative practice’ into a politically charged act that highlights social redundancy and resists the loss of working-class cultural heritage through advocacy of safeguarding. Through these collaborations, Brownsword constructs an ethically reflexive model that acknowledges holders of marginalised immaterial heritage as co-producers of knowledge and repositions their labour as a vital form of cultural memory. Alchemy and Metamorphosis’s innovative methodology engages recreative practice as a dynamic process of knowledge transmission to challenge cultural amnesia associated with deindustrialisation. It demonstrates how institutions might reframe their engagement with intangible heritage through more dialogical and critical approaches.

Alchemy and Metamorphosis brought to the fore ‘unseen’ examples of industrial archaeology and ‘un-curated’ material trials by Josiah Wedgwood (1759–1795), instrumental to his pursuit of product perfection. Through desk and archival research, Brownsword recovered historic glaze and body recipes from early industrial production, including those documented by Wedgwood in his original recipe book. Responding to Wedgwood’s analysis of failure, Brownsword set about re-creating his ‘unsuccessful’ recipes, which were cast into moulds of digitally replicated collection objects representative of early industrialisation. Drawing upon strategies of ‘epistemological anarchism’ (Feyerabend, 1975), Brownsword’s elucidation of risk and re-activation of failure through industrial empiricism served to counter sanitised narratives upheld by ‘authorised heritage discourse’ (Smith), along with the fetishization of perfection associated with high-end branding and craft revivalism.

A series of ongoing live works - Factory (2017–2021), Pattern Book (2017-2021), Externalising the Archive (2019-2021), and Taskscape (2020-2021) - brought together four years of sustained critical and creative enquiry with re-creative methodologies in contemporary art. These works innovatively foreground re-creation not as replication but as an ethical and political intervention into the erasure of artisanal labour and embodied knowledge in post-industrial Britain. The research reframes industrial craft practices within a critical and curatorial context to create new insights into the value of marginalised industrial heritage. Brownsword’s novel methodological strategies for exploring the intersection of art, heritage, and industrial heritage through practice-led experimentation, ethnography, performative re-enactment, and archival research, critically re-inscribe forgotten or devalued forms of knowledge into contemporary cultural discourse.

Alchemy and Metamorphosis’s re-evaluation of regional deindustrialisation and its effects on cultural memory contributes to cross-disciplinary debates in museology, contemporary art, and heritage craft preservation. By assembling former industry artisans into a cultural space as co-creators, the exhibition offers an alternative for curatorial and public engagement strategies that promote the safeguarding of intangible heritage within post-industrial contexts. Embedding practice in the physical and social geography of Stoke-on-Trent, Alchemy and Metamorphosis offers a model of place-based research with national and global relevance, that has advanced the visibility and perceived value of endangered craft knowledge associated with Stoke-on-Trent.

An international symposium, Beyond Preservation (curated by Brownsword in collaboration with the Heritage Craft Association) in conjunction with the exhibition, has since led to policy discussions surrounding preservation and continuity of industrial craft skills with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (2022–23) and via the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Craft (2025). Beyond Preservation also publicly presented research undertaken for the 2021 Red List survey concerning industrial ceramic skills, which Brownsword led. The results emphasised the cultural value of such knowledge, highlighting craft skills that remain critically endangered in the industry and calling to action the need for safeguarding.

The research dimensions behind Alchemy and Metamorphosis have been presented internationally at conferences, symposia, and public talks for art and heritage, including Brownsword’s keynote to the International Academy of Ceramics (2021). It has engaged scholars from museology and archaeology through publications (2021), been disseminated in Mandarin (2022), and was featured by the BBC (Secrets of the Museum, 2022). Its multiple components - performance residues and films - have been curated nationally and internationally, receiving numerous accolades. These include Brownsword’s invitation to show Alchemy and Metamorphosis at the Taiwan Ceramic Biennale (2022/23) – the only work representing the UK. Work curated for Alchemy and Metamorphosis, Taskscape was awarded second prize for excellence at the European Ceramic Triennial, Denmark (2024).

Alchemy and Metamorphosis was funded by Arts Council England (£27,730.00) and Stoke-on-Trent City Council (£3,000.00). It was supported by a consortium of partners including Austell Project, Whitegold International Ceramic Festival, Arts Council England, Spode Museum Trust, Imerys, Valentine Clays, Wheal Martyn Museum, British Ceramics Biennial, V&A Wedgwood Collection, Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, and Brampton Museum and Art Gallery.