Le Soif et la Source (The Thirst and the Well)

Watch ceramic artist Thiébaut Chagué build and fire a site-specific kiln, creating one of his signature pieces in the process. The kiln will be constructed and lit on Friday evening. It will be at full heat on Saturday afternoon, when Chagué plans to open up the kiln Raku-style to show the ceramic object being formed at peak temperature. Finally, the kiln will be left to cool and cracked open on Sunday afternoon to see the final piece emerge.

Thiébaut Chagué has been a practising potter and artist for the past thirty years. His work expresses the soul and the inner void. The pieces are built from the inside in the solitude of the studio and they are fed by the fire outside. The heat, pushes the clay to the limit of its resistance to its potential distruction. This risk taking is necessary for Chagué, by tearing the clay the fire reveals the energy that is contained inside the work.

Dark Chocolate Art

See Willie Harcourt-Cooze and his team demonstrating chocolate making from bean to 18th-century ceramic chocolatière. Savour the flavour of Harcourt-Cooze’s traditional truffles, hot chocolates and specially invented treats to celebrate the V&A’s Ceramica weekend, available to buy and try from the V&A café.

Willie Harcourt-Cooze has been growing cacao for more than a decade at the Hacienda El Tesoro, in the heights of the Henri Pittier National Park in Choroni, Venezuela.
http://www.williescacao.com/

Damaged Goods

See Barnaby Barford’s animation of a tragic love story played out by porcelain figurines with shattering consequences and make a stop-motion animation yourself.

Barnaby Barford is an artist who works with ceramics to create unique narrative pieces. Although an accomplished craftsman,
Barford primarily selects found objects, taking both mass-manufactured and antique figurines and turning them into sinister, sardonic but invariably humorous characters. http://www.barnabybarford.co.uk/

Stop motion (or frame-by-frame) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small amounts between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames are played as a continuous sequence.

Basic Ceramic Techniques

Meet the London Potters who will be demonstrating basic ceramic-making techniques from pinch pots and throwing to coiling. London Potters is a voluntary organisation formed in 1986 to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences of all those involved with or interested in ceramics. It is the only London-based society offering membership to both professional and non-professional ceramicists; all its members are united by the appreciation of ceramic art and a desire to further their knowledge and communicate with fellow ceramic artists and collectors.
http://www.londonpotters.com/

We Are Not Amused

Join our inaugural Ceramics Resident, Stephen Dixon, in creating a large ceramic mosaic of Queen Victoria. Visitors are invited to place pieces of the mosaic itself, and even bring along their own broken ceramics contributions to be included. Professor Stephen Dixon is the V&A’s first Ceramics resident, with a studio built into the Ceramics galleries themselves. Dixon draws on the satirical tradition to make works that are rich in political and contextual detail as well as being masterfully produced objects.

Materials Library Takes On Ceramics

See Materials Library demonstrate the beauty and the science of clay. Materials Library are an interdisciplinary collaborative team that make objects, events and exhibitions. The group is involved in both scientific research and artistic practices that explore the senso-aesthetics of different materials.
http://www.materialslibrary.org.uk/

French Fancies

Take a cheeky peek into the delicate rituals of 18th-century high fashion as Debbie Does brings to life the magnificent temporary exhibition Objects of Luxury in a playful promenade performance blending movement and contemporary dance to celebrate French etiquette of the 18th century from taking tea to la Toilette.

French Fancies is a bespoke performance commissioned by the V&A to celebrate the opening of the new ceramics galleries in our temporary exhibition Objects of Luxury. Produced by Debbie Does and designed by Shanti Freed.
www.debbie-does.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/shantifreed

Edmund de Waal and Michelle Ogundehin
In Conversation

Hear Edmund de Waal, one of the UK’s foremost contemporary ceramicists and professor of ceramics at the University of Westminster, discussing the nature of contemporary ceramics and design with Michelle Ogundehin, Editor-in-Chief of Elle Decoration.
http://www.edmunddewaal.com/

£8, £6 concessions Book online or call +44 (0)20 7942 2211

Chocolate and Ceramics

A Lifelong Friendship: Explore the journey of chocolate from bean to bar with with Willie Harcourt-Cooze, from Willie’s Cacao on Channel 4. The talk will touch on the development of chocolate consumption in South America and Europe with reference to special ceramic forms that developed as a result. There will be an opportunity for Q&A at the end.

Wilie Harcourt-Cooze has been growing cacao for more than a decade at the Hacienda El Tesoro, in the heights of the Henri Pittier National Park in Choroni, Venezuela.
http://www.williescacao.com/

Ceramics Surgery

Do you have a favourite jug at home that has lost its handle? Drop-in for demonstrations of ceramics conservation and repair from the V&A’s skilled conservation team. Thousands of ceramics were conserved for the new galleries and our team will show a selection of the techniques and object handling that were used. Find Conservation Journal articles on objects in the Ceramics collection here