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Possibilities and Losses: Transitions in Clay

Possibilities and Losses brought together 4 artists who challenge traditional perceptions of ceramic practice and its relationship to the historic model of craft. The exhibition offered new insights into experimental large-scale clay work emerging from contextually aware, material-specific artists. Brownsword presented a reworking of his highly acclaimed triptych Salvage Series (2005). His inventive capture of threatened skills through the material discard of ceramic manufacturing processes was reconfigured into a single large scale installation, flanked with looped film projections of factory demolition and the industry’s skilled artisans plying their trade. This searing juxtaposition offered an innovative contribution to greater public understanding of the extent of decline in British ceramic manufacture and the rapid displacement of its traditional skills.

Possibilities and Losses attracted 39,000 visitors and cited Salvage Series as 'one of the great monuments of contemporary British ceramics' (Adamson, 2010). The exhibition led to mima's acquisition of Salvage Series and Transition – a seminal work by Brownsword, which was 'auction-funded' by the Contemporary Art Society for mima's permanent collection (final bid £20,000.00), alongside works by the Chapman Brothers and other prominent Young British Artists. Transition was later selected by mima to represent its contemporary collection in the exhibition Interloqui, (2011) during the 54th Venice Biennale, which attracted 4400 visitors and was seen by a significant number of influential visual arts specialists world-wide.

The reach and critical significance of Possibilities and Losses has subsequently led to Salvage Series being curated for other high profile national and international exhibitions including Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution (Craftspace touring 2009/10), Thing Tang Trash, Bergen (2011); and its research context has been broadly disseminated through publications, international events and lectures including, Possibilities and Losses (Adamson, G., Vieteberg, J., 2010), The Making of Things, CAS Conference, Liverpool 2011), Alfred University, Alfred, USA (2011).