Mudbelly ceramics : Artists weekend residency

Mudbelly ceramics hosted a two-day artists residency at Camden Art Centre led by Phoebe Collings-James on 20 & 21 November. On invitation, artists who participated received resources and technical support in realizing a self-initiated idea for a ceramic sculpture.

The residency was led by Camden’s most recent ceramic fellow, Phoebe Collings-James, under their ceramic studio Mudbelly Teaches. The sessions shared resources and ceramic learning with Black students and artists to understand the varied access barriers there are to learning with clay and the energetic potential of Black peoples collective spaces.

Most of the work was made through hand building techniques, with a future opportunity to attend a half day glazing session at the end of Dec/start of Jan, once the works have dried and been through their first firing.

Mudbelly Teaches is an intersectional Black queer feminist pottery space that seeks an intimate, reciprocal approach to learning. Across a range of locations and unique formats we offer free and low cost ceramics classes for Black people in London, taught by Black ceramicists. We are excited by the holistic potential of ceramics, recognising the therapeutic and spiritual benefits of working with clay. It is our belief that intentional spaces like this are needed, in an overwhelmingly white and classist industry in the UK, to disrupt the multifaceted access barriers which are caused by endemic racism.