Material Provenance

Material Provenance is an exhibition to coincide with and promote the launch of a global open-source material research project of the same name created by the members of Clay Matters, who are part of a community interested in interrogating questions of environmental impact in their work. Four past and present artists from the Clay Matters collective present works produced using responsibly sourced materials and participate in a public program to discuss their research project. The participants choose to work from a limited list of currently traceable materials in order to make work from a place of broader understanding of the environmental impact, the process of extraction and the labour used to make the materials ready for ceramic application. Examining the questions of locality, transparency in material sourcing, energy usage, and circularity as they highlight the variety of colours, textures, and overall aesthetics possibilities within a more understood palette.

Materials used: Bennett’s clay, ball clay, silica, calcium carbonate, gerstley borate, neph syenite and copper.