EVENT GUIDE
Artwork by Bernice Lim
Thu 2 - Sun 5 NOV
The Clay Makers’ Market is a ceramics art and craft exhibition and sale for everyone.
More than 200 Singapore-based clay creatives in 99 stalls present their own ceramic works for exhibition and sale. This Market indulges pottery lovers with a delectable range of hundreds of ceramic works by Singapore potters.
Shoppers should be prepared for four full-on days of ceramics shopping! Pick up collectibles, order handmade tableware, and have your early Christmas spree for yourself, friends and family.
Meet the potters and sign on for their studio workshops too. Clay makers from partner community organisations will be joining us – we welcome potters from A:2:A Collective, The Art Faculty, and members of SG Enable’s initiative i’mable Collective - JOURNEY by TOUCH, Arts@Metta and Art:Dis showing side-by-side with professional ceramicists and weekend potters. The Clay Makers’ Market builds bonds within the clay-making community especially by welcoming newer potters and giving everyone the opportunity to connect!
Thu 2 - Sun 5 NOV
A curated group exhibition of made-in-Singapore ceramics by leading potters and ceramists who shape our local clay heritage. Featuring noteworthy series of works of Singapore ceramists, Shaping Clay shows the creativity and skills picked from the large and committed community of potters in Singapore. This 2023 edition will present 8 to 10 selected clay makers.
The selection panel comprises Ahmad Abu Bakar, Chua Soo Kim, Seah Tzi-Yan and Wendy Cheong. The selection panel have sought to highlight works in clay that are artistic, original, innovative, fresh, creative, stretching the boundaries of ceramic work, that may have a sense of cultural identity and imagination.
Keynote Talk
Artwork by Steven Low
Thu 2 NOV, 10.30 - 11.45am
Talking with Clay – Making, Learning and Teaching Clay in Singapore
​
Kelvin Low and Suriani Suratman began a study of the sensory experiences of clay practitioners in Singapore recently. Based on their on-going research on these practices, they ask how clay makers understand clay as a material and clay work as a process. Based on detailed interviews, they try to discover how sensorial perception matters in the experience of learning and teaching the processes of clay working. The various ways and methods to negotiate and depict individual strategies of working with clay are also enlarged upon in this work-in-progress update. Ceramics lovers and practitioners should not miss this opportunity for a deeper appreciation of clay practices in Singapore!
The Speakers
Kelvin E.Y. Low is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, National University of Singapore. His research interests include sensory studies, migration and transnationalism, social memory, and food and foodways. He is author or editor of 6 books, with the most recent being Sensory Anthropology: Culture and Experience in Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2023). He is presently working on a monograph about Nepalese Gurkha families and their migratory lifeworlds in the contexts of Singapore, Nepal, Hong Kong, and the UK. Kelvin has also just begun researching on ceramics and clay work (together with Suriani Suratman), by exploring how artists and practitioners combine their sensory and technical knowledges in processes of clay making.
​
Suriani Suratman, a social anthropologist, is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Malay Studies and Convener of the Minor in Gender Studies at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Her research areas include (re)production of portrayals of Malays and gender relations in Malay families and households. Her recent research projects with colleagues include “Being and Becoming Female in the Malay World – Interrogating and Curating the Photo-Archives in Early Singapore” and “Town Malays in Colonial Singapore – Urban Histories and Civic Lives through a Survey of Neighbourhoods, Associations and Public Figures”. She is also a ceramic artist and carries out her practice at Jalan Bahar Clay Studios.
Thu 2 - Sun 5 NOV
CLAY WORKSHOPS (ages 13 and up)
​
Modify and Modulate: Using Templates to Generate New Forms
Facilitator: Clay-Street
Create a folded box with lid using a template and decorate it using texture, colour slips and stencils.The completed pieces will be glazed, fired and ready for personal collection from Clay-Street pottery studio in 5-6 weeks’ time.
​
Thu 2 Nov, 2.30 pm – 4.30 pm
Fri 3 Nov, 2.30 pm – 4.30 pm
Sat 4 Nov, 2.30 pm – 4.30 pm
Sun 5 Nov, 2.30 pm – 4.30 pm
S$90 (includes all materials and firing, and full-day entry on respective workshop day) Limited to 10 participants per workshop.
​
CHILDREN’S WORKSHOPS (ages 8+)
Playful Pinching
Facilitator: Clay-Street
Make whimsical and fun small sculptures of animals using pinching and also incorporating other hand-building techniques.The completed pieces will be glazed, fired and ready for personal collection from Clay-Street pottery studio in 5-6 weeks’ time.
Sat 4 Nov, 10.30 am – 12.30 pm
Sun 5 Nov, 10.30 am – 12.30 pm
S$90 (includes all materials and firing, and full-day entry on respective workshop day for participating child and one accompanying
adult for participant aged 8-12) Limited to 10 participants per workshop.
​
​
​
The facilitator:
Mona Malhotra is a trained textile designer and a practising ceramic artist with an experience of over 15 years as a pottery instructor in Singapore and Malaysia. She is actively involved in conducting pottery classes for all age levels at Clay-Street pottery studio. Mona has conducted various corporate workshops and also organised pottery firing workshops as well as successfully curated exhibitions in Singapore and Malaysia.Clay-Street pottery studio is a school for clay making and a professional members studio for clay makers working on independent projects. Its instructors are full-time professional potters who lead classes from basic levels in hand building and wheel throwing to advanced levels of sculpting. Since 2002, Clay-Street has also been leading art-based team bonding programmes. It also specialises in designing community art projects.
