Behind the Scenes at the Museum: Ceramics in the Expanded Field

This research project examines how ceramic artists can animate museum collections in new ways and the impact that this understanding will have in the broad context of visual culture. The research will examine the past decade of groundbreaking projects involving contemporary ceramic artists within museums, exploring how such practice, that incorporates curatorial discourse, can be identified and theorised. It will theorise this area of practice as part of the established context of artistic intervention in museum collections and explore how the new knowledge can be disseminated.

The project will explore and disseminate this research through the following outcomes:
1) Collaborative projects with three major museums; Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas, USA, the York Art Gallery and the Freud Museum in London, resulting in 3 major exhibitions and providing different models for working with collections.
2) A cutting edge interactive website where critical essays from international theorists will be added at regular intervals.
3) A seminar series based around each museum culminating in a major international conference.
4) The publication of a critical anthology of essays which will offer a theoretical overview of these outcomes
5) A 3-person exhibition which will bring the Investigators' findings together through the dissemination of their practice.

Since 1945 museums have had an equivocal relationship with contemporary ceramics reflecting a widespread anxiety about the status of the discipline, situated between art and craft. There have been solo shows and occasional surveys, but comparatively few exhibitions have brought historical collections into conjunction with contemporary ceramic practice. However over the last decade this relationship has begun to change and ceramic interventions are now much more likely to be found within museums than ever before.
The animation of collections can happen through a variety of ways:
1) The integration of an artist's own ceramic practice into the curatorial process creating a stimulus for new ways of making and new approaches to interpretation.
2) The artist's involvement in the choice or display of objects or their ownership of texts or images used alongside objects.
3) The emergence of unexpected synergies as contemporary work is seen alongside historical work, which allows for the development of new interpretative strategies for museums.
4) The generation of fresh approaches in museology raising questions as to the limits of ceramic history.
This research will lead to clearer understanding of where collaboration has occurred and what the outcomes have been. Through a critical over-view of these developments the 3 Investigators and the PhD student will research the significance for museums and for the discipline of ceramics both nationally and internationally.

With the decline in education and industry of a practice that is of such fundamental relevance, the need to raise the profile of this discipline has never been so urgent. At the same time ceramics is broadening out its dialogues with other fields through both experimental practice and developments in critical theory, which is establishing its potential as a discipline that can demand the same attention and respect as other areas of visual art. The relationship between ceramic artists and museum collections forms a key part of this development, but the need to establish this importance has not been fully explored. Ceramic objects form a major part of museum collections with connections to anthropology, archaeology and other disciplines that engage with the cultural and social history of humankind. This project will therefore contribute to the dialogues and agendas which surround this significant area of practice by filling a gap in cultural knowledge and helping to raise awareness not only of its importance in the contemporary art landscape but also its socail and cultural relevance for new audiences.

This research project aims to create a substantial impact beyond the immediate academic ceramics community to benefit
1) specialist visitors to museums such as ceramists, artists, designers, architects, critics, writers and historians
2) museum and applied arts curators and staff
3) policy makers and arts administrators from e.g. the Crafts Council and the Arts Council
4) curators of ceramics and applied art
5) those working in the development of collections
6) museum directors and architects working on museum design.
7) the general public.
The research outcomes that are disseminated through publications such as catalogues and books will provide a commercial benefit to museums and bookshops through retail sales.
Three national seminars and an international conference will bring together people from diverse parts of the sector and provide opportunities for arts practitioners, policymakers and curators to meet, critique and theorise the concept and practice of working with museums.By examining the benefits and constraints of interventions these seminars bring focus to an area of museological practice that has not yet been theorised and contribute to both current policy debates and current practice.
The exhibitions that arise from this research will bring the collections to life for the general public, a huge benefit to the development of museum audiences and potential future projects.
The website, seminar programme, international conference and publications will disseminate the research beyond the academy on an international level.
Impact will vary depending on the individual or sector involved and the timescale of benefits may be short term, for example in terms of visitors to an exhibition, or long term in the case of policy changes.
The Investigators will continue to develop their own skills as researchers, writers and artists which will be of huge benefit in their broad engagement with the public beyond academia.
The Investigators are involved in individual projects with 3 international museums and are at various levels of engagement within them.
In the Nelson Atkins Museum, USA, Clare Twomey will respond to the pottery collection and make an installation-based artwork.
In York Art Gallery Edmund de Waal will make a new body of work with relationship to the ceramic collection and to the architectural space.
In the Freud Museum in London Christie Brown will make a body of work focussing on Freud's dreamwork theory and his collection of figurines.
The wider non-academic audience will be reached through a range of outcomes outlined above.
The website will play a key role in publicising these outcomes and the team will liaise with the museums to maximise publicity.
Collaboration within the project:
The roles and responsibilities within the 3 museums will be clearly defined by regular contact with the Investigators and the development of these established connections.
Plans to make a final exhibition that brings the diverse work all three Investigators together will be developed as a key output which will reveal challenging responses and comparisons and demonstrate the connections between each Investigator's findings.
The website essays, seminar programme and final 3-day international conference will form the core of a book examining the concept of ceramic intervention, edited by Edmund de Waal with contributions from practitioners, curators and critics which will reach a wide international audience.
The Investigators have extensive experience of working with museums such as the V&A, MIMA and the Petrie Museum and delivering major seminars and conferences in this context. They also liaise regularly with other international networks including Think Tank: An European Initiative on the Applied Arts, The World Crafts Council, National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts , U