Material Engagement with Common Ceramics

Like textiles, ceramic materials–clay, bricks, tiles, glass, and cement–are a bedrock of everyday living. The Netherlands still counts a substantial number of industrial ceramic factories (today more than 40, but hundreds in the past) in the eastern and southern part of the country, located alongside the major rivers (e.g. the Rhine and Meuse), where clay is sourced. But however much we rely on ceramic materials, the (surface) mining and working of soils required to make them, impacts natural and social systems due to material extraction, waste handling, and most notably CO2 emissions. The high temperatures required for firing, melting, and drying ceramic materials, makes it one of the highest energy consuming industries in the Netherlands and in the world (Furszyfer Del Rio et al. 2022). In collaboration with the EKWC, the International

research center for ceramics, Sub-Project 2 will use SME to explore what climate-just harvesting and processing of soils may look like in ceramics. The PhD candidate will study historical and global examples of ceramic materials produced without heat (e.g., historical traditions of cold-glazing tableware with milk and glass decorated with oil paint; cold baked bricks in Malawi; and ceramics produced by microbes, i.e., biomineralization). This aligns with EKWC’s plans to host a series of ‘unfiring’ residencies, challenging residents to not fire their work during their stay. As ceramic materials are traditionally associated with durability, with firing ensuring its stability, ceramics is inevitably considered a fire art. Sub-Project 2 asks how we can form a new understanding of earth-materials that embrace the possibilities of the temporality of ceramics. It considers what happens when we seek new forms of ceramics durability through both historical and recent production processes. Connects with WP 4 Just Transitions.