BRITISH CERAMICS BIENNIAL RETURNS TO STOKE-ON-TRENT IN SEPTEMBER 2025

The next edition of the British Ceramics Biennial will run from 6 September to 19 October 2025. Bringing together a dynamic programme of free talks and events that shine a light on Stoke-on-Trent’s industrial heritage and creative edge.

British Ceramics Biennial 2023. Credit Fabio De Paola/PA Wire

Hot on the heels of Stoke-on-Trent being named a World Craft City, and in the year that the city celebrates its centenary, the 2025 Biennial will spotlight leading contemporary ceramic artists and introduce work by fresh new talent, animating historic buildings and unexpected places with clay.

As well as staging the single largest ceramics event in the UK, British Ceramics Biennial runs an engaging year-round programme of artists’ commissions, learning and community projects in Stoke-on-Trent, with a vision of making change through clay. 

Sounding Line by Mella Shaw, winner of the 2023 Award Prize. Credit Jenny Harper

Programme highlights

• BCB’s flagship exhibition, Award, bringing together new work by 10 leading artists competing for the £10,000 BCB Award Prize. They include Jane Perryman, whose plant-dyed ceramics chart her 20-year rewilding of an agricultural wasteland, and Daniel Silver who examines the human experience through his ceramic and oil paint sculptures.

• The new wave of artists working in clay introduced through Fresh.

• Playscape: an experimental rammed earth architecture project with Tuckey Design Studio that will transform construction clay spoil and aggregate into a children’s play space.

• BCB’s first Clay Films programme showcasing the work of 10 Global Majority artists working in film and clay – an area of practice which has to date received little exposure.

• Josie KO’s The Chimney Princess for the BCB People & Place Commission, in which she explores the role of Black women in Stoke-on-Trent and creates a new goddess for the city.

• Clay Conference examining the opportunities, challenges and environmental impact of re-using clay sourced from UK construction spoil.

• Slip Tales: a contemporary response to Staffordshire’s heritage of slip decoration shown in a display of tableware made by local communities.

• Raverina’s Dance Floor: an interactive, sensory art installation by Carolina Garfo inspired by the ceramic practices of the Algarve in Portugal.

• New work from rising ceramic stars Tim Fluck, Caroline Gray, Andrea Leigh, Chi Onwordi and Krzysztof Strzelecki created during their Fresh Talent Residencies.

Resimaltları:

Playscape, work in progress. Credit Jenny Harper