Output details

22 Hands

The film ‘22 Hands’ is set within the Portmeirion factory in Stoke-On-Trent, Staffordshire, and provides a rare glimpse into the manufacturing processes of the ceramics industry. At odds with the contemporaneous mechanisation of ceramic processes are the interruptions introduced by hand processes. The film’s title draws upon the fact the ceramic objects pass through 22 pair of hands, as well as machines, from start to completion. The film is set to a well-known piece of music, An der schönen blauen Donau (The Blue Danube) by Johann Strauss II. To create the whole, the factory, like an orchestra, has each person playing an individual role. The waltz as a dance style implies a grace of choreography, perfect timing and the synchronous rhythm of the manufacturing process. The music and cinematography combined implicitly reference Stanley Kubrick's film of Arthur C Clarke's novel 2001 A Space Odyssey. The film can be described as a documentary, as it is about the process of making ceramics, but as the film records it also adopts the creative role of ‘an artist in residence’. Its significance is thus related to process, but the film style is a pastiche on music video, Hollywood, epic cinema, and manufacturing itself. The aim was to make an artist’s documentary showing the processes involved in making Spode ceramics. Unlike the usual freedoms associated with artist’s work, the ceramics manufacturing industry is carefully regulated and the conditions for filming were similarly subject to limitations. This provided the methodology for filming and was determined by negotiation with the factory’s management team. In this way limited access, health, safety and intellectual property constraints formed the basis of the approach. The film was selected for the 2011 British Ceramics Biennial. http://www.britishceramicsbiennial.com/about/news/22-hands-film-available-on-youtube/