Ceramics and its Dimensions: Shaping the Future exhibition opened on Tuesday May 15th for the sixth time, this time at the National Museum of Slovenia (Narodni Muzej Slovenije) in Ljubljana.

Opening at the National Museum of Slovenia

The opening started with a speech from Barbara Ravnik, the director of the National Museum of Slovenia and her speech was followed by a speech from Wilhelm Siemen, the director of Porzellanikon and the leader of the Ceramics and its Dimensions project. He spoke about the importance of European collaboration and that one of the important missions of the project is to take ceramics into the future. “We want to show people that ceramics in everywhere in our lives” he stated.

Professor Maarit Mäkelä, the leader of the Ceramics and its Dimensions: Shaping the Future sub-project, spoke in her opening speech about how future is built together with students, teachers, professors and professionals. This is also one of the reasons why their works are shown side by side in the exhibition. She ended her speech with an invitation: “Via this exhibition I invite you to co-envision with the exhibiting artists and designers how the intersection of different fields – in this case art, craft, design and technology – might overlap productively in the future, especially in the context of ceramics.” Finally Damjana Pečnik, the State secretary at Ministry of Culture of Slovenia, opened the exhibition.

The Future Lights winners that have been traveling with the exhibition since Portadown (NI) are also this time on view next to the exhibition in Ljubljana. The next Future Lights competition will be held at Kilkenny Castle (UK) in September 2018.

IV International Ceramic Triennial UNICUM 2018

At the same time with the Ceramics and its Dimensions: Shaping the Future exhibition the fourth International Ceramic Triennial UNICUM 2018 is organised at the museum. The triennial exhibition opened on May 18th and will be open until September 30th 2018.

Tour ends in Prague later this year

The Ceramics and its Dimensions: Shaping the Future exhibition has been on view in five different cities around Europe during one and a half years: Fiskars (Finland), Selb (Germany), Portadown (Northern Ireland), Stoke-on-Trent (UK) and Berlin (Germany).  Ljubljana is the sixth city where the exhibition is on display. The seventh and last venue of the exhibition will be at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, where the exhibition will open in the beginning of September.

From January 30th until April 22nd 2018, the Ceramics and its Dimensions: Shaping the Future exhibition was on display at Bröhan Museum Berlin. During that time the exhibition attracted approximately 20 000 visitors. One of the highlights of the exhibition in Berlin was the Ceramics and Talks event organised on April 14th.

In Berlin the core exhibition was supplemented by current student projects from Weißensee School of Art and Design Berlin. The student projects were supervised by Professor Barbara Schmidt from Weißensee. She was also responsible for the Berlin edition of the Shaping the Future exhibition and gave several guided tours through the exhibition during the three months it was open at Bröhan-Museum.

A part of the events related to the Shaping the Future exhibition are the Round Table meetings that are organised at the exhibition venues around Europe. In Berlin the Ceramics and Talks event was organised as a local adaption of the Round Table concept. Before Berlin the discussions have taken place already in Fiskars (Finland) Selb (Germany) and Stoke-on-Trent (UK).  The idea of the discussions is to discuss the value and future of ceramics in the local context and in relation to the themes of the Shaping the Future exhibition. The participants are local people working in the field of ceramic as well as people associated in the Shaping the Future exhibition.

During the Ceramics and Talks event in Berlin the students of Weißensee presented their works that are a part of the Shaping the Future exhibition and made the exhibition more accessible to the audience through tastings and live performances. Open to the general public, the event attracted numerous guests who had the opportunity to take part in for example a Coffee Ceremony, taste fermented food with specially designed ceramic tools, decorate plates with the Melodic Scribe installation and understand the process of ceramic 3D printing through a live demonstration. Professor Barbara Schmidt and students introduced the exhibition and gave background information of the works on display. Invited guests and visitors exchanged thoughts on the future perspectives of ceramics in vivid discussions.

2018 is the European Year of Cultural Heritage and throughout the year different aspects of cultural heritage are celebrated across Europe – at EU, national, regional and local level. Finnish National Agency for Education funds several projects that build bridges between past, present and future. On April 20th the Agency’s international programme organised an event  to discuss the different projects that deal with cultural heritage. At the event coordinator Priska Falin from Aalto University presented the Ceramics and its Dimensions project as well as the Shaping the Future sub-project.

The Creative Europe programme of EU has been funding the Ceramics and its Dimensions project that has eighteen partner institutions in eleven different countries in Europe. The project includes a wide range of different perspectives to ceramics. Finnish  Aalto University leads one of its sup-projects: the Shaping the Future Module, that concentrates on the future of ceramics and has been conducted together with students.

– Together with students we vision what the future of the field of ceramics and what their own job descriptions could look like in the future, tells Falin.

Cultural heritage is one of the starting points of the whole project. All the partners involved share a common interest in working for ceramics and for creating international networks. The know-how of the field is in danger to decrease on European level and this is one of the reasons why international collaboration is so important.

– Through the project, we try to understand ceramics in different cultures and think of ways how to use this knowledge in the future. We raise the profile of the field of ceramics and develop it in collaboration with the other European partners, describes Falin.

At the moment the touring Ceramics and its Dimensions: Shaping the Future exhibition is on its way to its sixth venue: the National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The exhibition will open there on May 16th 2018.

On the video Shaping the Future coordinator Priska Falin tells about the European Ceramics and its Dimensions project (4:54).

More information about the event (in Finnish)

The program of the event (in Finnish)