Obsolescence and Renewal - exhibition catalogue

Brownsword, N., (ed) Tandem, Goodby, M.,Obsolescence and Renewal, Topographies of the Obsolete Publications, 978-0-9926931-3-8.
Available as a free download.

Obsolescence and Renewal extends artist Neil Brownsword’s examination of
marginalised histories associated with the origins of British ceramic manufacture. North Staffordshire’s industrial and economic growth was fuelled in part by its imitation and assimilation of Chinese styles and commodities to supply demand for the burgeoning fashion of tea drinking in the 17th and 18th centuries. Pre-industrial attempts to emulate the sophistications of porcelain and other ceramics imported from southern China eventually led to material and technological advances that later influenced the region’s development as a global centre of production.

In revisiting these histories, Brownsword sets out to further this process of
exchange between materials, artefacts and production practices. Through copying his own ceramic culture, he dismantles methods of uniform reproduction by subverting traditional and digital technologies. Transferring his knowledge of ceramics to other materials and processes, Brownsword deliberately embraces the deviations and errors that occur within the thresholds of image and object simulation. His ‘copies without originals’ aim to reconnect a contemporary audience to innovations of an obscured industrial past that remain significant contributions to the cultural identity of north Staffordshire.

The texts that comprise this catalogue introduce Brownsword’s artistic practice from a range of theoretical positions, and offer a historic context to Newcastle-under-Lyme’s important contributions to early ceramic industrialisation.