The British Ceramics Biennial (BCB) Festival, the single largest contemporary ceramics event in the UK will take place in Stoke-on-Trent against the backdrop of the city’s industrial heritage from 23 September to 5 November 5 2023.
For 2023, BCB introduces a new Festival hub, All Saints Church in Hanley. This historic Arts and Crafts church - built ‘by the potters, for the potters’ - will be home to BCB’s flagship exhibitions “Award” and “Fresh”. “Award” presents major new work by 10 of the UK’s most innovative ceramic artists competing for a £10,000 prize; “Fresh” is a platform for 25 emerging talents from the UK and Ireland.
Alongside these exhibitions, BCB’s first People and Place Commission will see artist Emilie Taylor interpret and respond to the post-industrial landscape of Staffordshire. On the church altar, 2021 Award winner Stephen Dixon will create “Istoriato: culture and conflict”, a large-scale allegorical tile panel inspired by the churches and vessels in renaissance and pre-renaissance Italy. Elsewhere in the Festival hub will be a celebration of new talent from Fresh Talent artists. There will also be a showcase of work by recent graduates and researchers from Staffordshire University. BCB’s ever-popular Project Space will give people the chance to get hands-on with clay while exploring the themes of local tile making, ecology and environmental sustainability. The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery will be home an installation of multidisciplinary artist and writer Osman Yousefzada. In the nearby Brampton Museum, Neil Brownsword’s Obsolescence and Renewal exhibition will extend the artist’s examination of marginalised regional histories associated with the origins of British ceramic manufacture.
Detailed information about the rich program of the Festival can be obtained from this link: www.britishceramicsbiennial.com
