Resonating spaces

Commission for the British Ceramics Biennial 2019. On from the 6th September - 17th November 2019 at Middleport Pottery.

At Middleport Pottery the artists have led an explorative project, creating a series of temporary structures, interventions and soundscapes across the site. The iconic interior of the bottle kiln, the hidden corners and traces of former factory buildings become active, contemplative spaces where visitors experience the layered qualities of this extraordinary site of living heritage.

The artists, Guillaume Dujat (Sound Artist), Helen Felcey (Artist Curator), Kieran Hanson (Film-maker) and Joe Hartley [Standard Practice] (Product Designer) have come together as an interdisciplinary team to shape and create Resonating Spaces. Over three months, the group have been working with members of Burslem Jubilee Project, as co-producers and participants in the exploration and expression of collective outcomes.

Resonating Spaces and the work with the Burslem Jubilee project has been used as a case study for the Baring Foundation’s report: Creatively Minded and Ethnically Diverse, How can access to creative opportunities for people with mental health problems from ethnically diverse backgrounds be improved? Expert reflections and good practice examples from people with personal and professional experience of this field.

Bottle Kiln

The inner chamber, Middleport’s sole remaining bottle kiln, provides the atmospheric setting for unfamiliar sonic and intriguing compositions, marking the rhythms of the factory and capturing moments of clay in transformational states. Visitors are invited to play their part, adding dry clay into the mix, contributing to this curious soundscape.

On entering the outer area of the kiln, you will find a container full of wrapped, unfired items. You are invited to take an item and carry it round into the inner chamber of the kiln. Removing the item from its wrapping, here you can place your item into the vessel. Listen to a cacophony of sounds as the clay rehydrates and the material state shifts from one to another.

On the hour, within the bottle kiln, a ten-minute sound composition will be triggered, exploring the sounds that have been recorded around Middleport factory site.

Lean-to

Within this quiet corner of Middleport factory, we encounter a new composition of immersive sound. This is a space for discovering the natural resonance and harmonics of clay. The lean-to was historically the point on site where the raw pottery materials were lifted from the canal boat into the factory. When transportation moved from canal to road, this once buzzing area became somewhat dormant. Decades on, the quiet presence and traces of the former factory processes remain. The machinery, marks of production and material residue, now revealed, have provided space for new production.

A series of clay slabs are arrayed within the space. Each slab has a specific series of natural frequencies, which are defined by the clay body, the surface treatment and firing. The sound composition is shaped entirely by the resonant tones of each clay slab, emitted by sending vibrations through the material.