The potter's quarter
Ceramics show presents newly commissioned works from Australian artists
Juz Kitson's Rejuvenate Rekindle Restore Resurrect Resuscitate, 2024, terracotta, raky clay and various glazes
The museum commissioned the ceramic works for its Kerameikos exhibition, named after the ancient potter’s quarter in Athens. The show features seven Australian ceramic artists: Vipoo Srivilasa, Monica Radi Rudhar, Juz Kitson, Kirsten Coelho, Glenn Barkley, Idil Abdullahi and Janet Fieldhouse.
Led by exhibition curator and archaeologist Candace Richards, the artists spent a week in residency at the museum in February, immersing themselves in its antiquities, natural history, art, ethnography and science collections. The resulting works provide a fresh perspective on one of Australia’s oldest museum collections.
“We wanted to curate a new exhibition featuring the dynamic practice of ceramic artists in Australia today, reflecting the fact that the museum has over 12,000 ceramic objects stretching across thousands of years of history in its collection preserving memories and histories throughout time,” said Ms Richards.
“The invited artists went in very different directions when they picked objects from, and responded to, our collections. It was a very artist-led experience. They all think deeply about material culture in our society and the representation of memory in their work.”
Located on the outskirts of the ancient city, the Kerameikos area was named after its ceramic workshops and lends its name to the English word ‘ceramics’ (it later became a cemetery). With an abundance of potter’s workshops, it allowed for a thriving ceramics trade. Among the museum’s collection is a Dipylon krater (funerary vase) from Kerameikos, dating back to 750BC.
Terracotta mother and child figurine, 1450-1200BC, Cyprus from the University's Nicholson Museum, one of the objects which inspired new works by Juz Kitzon.
“Ceramics, once fired, are in the world forever,” said Ms Richards. “The most common artefacts we find on archaeological digs are ceramics. They endure as objects once used in every-day life, as sculptures or as votive offerings.”
“So much oral history has been passed down the centuries through pictorial depictions on Greek ceramics. Although prompted by our collections, the artists in Kerameikos bring their own personal histories, personalities and styles to the medium in a way we hope will similarly pass on through generations and represent the story of Australia in 2024.”
“I love it when artists come and work on site in the museum and in the museum context,” said Michael Dagostino, Director of the Chau Chak Wing Museum.
“The way that artists work with the collections reveals so much about the way we institutionalise knowledge. The artist experience is core to how we want to re-think the Chau Chak Wing Museum as part of the cultural landscape”
Kerameikos is on show at the Chau Chak Wing Museum, the University’s free museum, from 24 August until 3 August 2025. The exhibition is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.