Kerameikos. The Potters' Quarter

Abstract

The Kerameikos project invited seven Australian ceramicists and mixed-media artists - Monica Rani Rudhar, Janet Fieldhouse, Idil Abdullahi, Vipoo Srivilasa, Juz Kitson, Kirsten Coelho, and Glenn Barkley - to explore the expansive historic collections of the Chau Chak Wing Museum and create new works from their experience. The provocation to reimagine collections became the framework for these contemporary artists to address institutional legacies, colonial collecting practices, and current social challenges, resulting in a unique exhibition that reconceptualises a collections-based exhibition. In Greek antiquity, the Kerameikos was the potters’ quarter, where craftspeople and artisans came together to produce some of the finest ceramics of the Mediterranean region and was a hub of innovation for the already ancient art form of ceramics. Key to the development of Kerameikos at the CCWM was a research-intensive week together at the Museum, creating a new hub of innovation, where the artists engaged with each other, our museum team and the collections. The installed exhibition offers a new way of seeing Australia's oldest university collections, challenging historical narratives and infusing the galleries with culturally diverse, and non-academic, perspectives, that reflect our contemporary museum communities.