A ceramics workshop by Melita Couta & Vassos Demetriou
Make pots – Cook food – Eat, discuss, enjoy.
In the context of the project Phygital the University of Nicosia Research Foundation invites you to a workshop that focuses notions of making by hand in communities, in our times of digital realities.
The workshop focuses on pottery making as a social activity and a communal gathering. The participants will be looking into artefacts from the archeological museum and trying to understand the function, structure and building method of these objects by creating forms inspired by them. The process of building together these clay forms, invites the participants to think of pottery making in its origins, as an activity performed collectively in the community for both social and practical reasons. The objects produced would serve the daily needs of people, especially in relation with food preparation and ceremonies. Such practices of collective making and firing are still performed around the world in places like Morocco, Indian, Japan.
The workshop will be carried out in two parts. In part A, participants will meet to create works out of clay, using hand building techniques such as coiling, mold pressing and an introduction to pottery wheel. The objects produced will be fired and glazed. In part B, participants will be gathering for a symposium, where the ceramic pots will be used for a dinner preparation, and discussion over the topics of ceramic art and craft from past to present will be initiated.
Workshop capacity: 10 persons. Registration is required. You can register at the contact information below.
Workshop dates – places – information:
8 February 10:00- 13:00 and 14:00- 17:00, Nicosia University Fine Art Building. Ceramic making. After the completion of pottery making, the works will be left to dry and then fired and glazed in the University kiln by Vassos and Melita. When they are ready, participants will be notified to collect them. Materials and tools will be provided by the workshop
29 February 19:30 Symposium. Lakatamia Museum of History and Cultural Inheritance. Every participant is invited to prepare a dish by using the pots and contribute to the collective dinner.
Contact person: Melita Couta, email: [email protected]
Phygital Project
Phygital is an Interreg V 2014-2020 BalkanMed, EU-funded programme being implemented in Greece, Albania and Cyprus and involves the development of makerspaces – one in each country – that will work with the local community. In Cyprus, the project’s work is being carried out by the University of Nicosia Research Centre in collaboration with the Municipality of Lakatamia/hack66 and will focus on social art practices exploring the melding of open technology, art and design. The project operates on the basis of the ‘design global – manufacture local’ model which introduces innovative organisational and business patterns allowing an unprecedented booming of communities engaged in do-it-yourself (DIY) activities. It wishes to support and enhance these local capacities for innovation and utilise the opportunities the decentralised modes of production can create. The Cyprus section of the project examines the importance of makerspace culture in the advancement of contemporary social art and design practices. It delves into the principles of open source projects, software-hardware freedom and bottom-up collaborative structures to explore ways they can be utilised – in line with social art/design practices – to address the needs of the local community.
