Performative Ceramic

a Workshop to explore intuitive modeling, and ceramic as a tool for storytelling

starting March 2024

What does a material want to be in a particular moment? 
In the workshop Performative Ceramic you will explore clay as an active co-creator and as a storytelling device.

In this workshop you will first activate your body, losen up thoughts, and encounter the raw material as an active partner with which to have a “dance” of creation, of body-to-body forming.

Next, you will explore clay as a technique to perform with, and as a canvas to be activated through the making of a ceramic sculpture. Clay is understood in this workshop as an active co-creator and as a storytelling device:
How does its story converge with that of/in your own body?
We explore its potentials as well as unveil - and work with - the frustrations or other emotional reactions that the material may arise in you.

At the end of this workshop you will produce a small glazed clay sculpture (approximate size 20 x 20 x 20 cm) or small group of sculptures. 

This workshop is suitable for creatives with and without previous experience working with clay.

The workshop is comprised of two x 4-hour sessions, through which you will exercise first modeling and then glazing.

Duration: 2 sessions of 4 hours each (Total 8 hours for the workshop)
Group size: up to 8 participants
Location: Altstetten, Zurich
Languages: English, Spanish, and/or German
Cost: CHF 385.-
Included in the price: mentoring, all materials (two clay choices), firing (bisque and glaze firing costs + service). Plus coffee/tea & snacks

Do you have questions? Email us.

Why this workshop?

Art is my passion and my profession. Art has also been, and continues to be, my “savior”. It is my go-to tool in the moments I feel stressed, afraid, or disoriented. Liberating the head and bringing the action to the hands helps me to relax the inner tension. It also allows me to express things, to visualize what is inside. It helps the subconscious to become visible and brings clarity to chaos. In those moments I don’t search for any particular result, even though I can later recognize their artistic value.

This process is part of my artistic practice. It has also helped me enormously to navigate difficult moments. Therefore I wish to share it with you and other persons through this workshop.

I’ve had the opportunity to bring this intuitive process of creating to students, as well as to a wider audience in museums and art spaces. As tutor, I have led workshops in several European institutions like F+F and ZHdK in Zurich, TU Delft and Fontys Academy of the Arts in The Netherlands, and Istituto Europeo di Design and Universidad Europea in Madrid. I have also realized series of performative works in which I invited the public to share their stories and express them through drawing or through modeling, like in the participatory “What is Our Dream?” (Helmhaus, 2020-2021), “Scenes for Satisfaction” (Art Festival Winterthur, 2021), and “White and Black, Things and Rituals” (Shedhalle, 2021, supported by Stadt Zürich Kultur). For this last work I used glazed ceramic as technique, employing it in the way I share in this workshop.
Some of my ceramic series have also been exhibited in galleries and art spaces in Zurich, like Ceramic World II, Ceramic World III, and the series Tongues. Several are part of private and institutional art collections.