From 23 September to 5 November 2023 the eighth British Ceramics Biennial took place in Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme. Exhibitions, events, and new artist commissions animated the city, spotlighting some of the leading ceramic artists working today, all against the backdrop of Stoke-on-Trent’s distinctive industrial heritage.
All Saints Church in Hanley, an Arts & Craft church built ‘by the potters, for the potters’ was the main Biennial venue in 2023 with major solo exhibitions at The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, AirSpace Gallery, and The Brampton Museum in Newcastle-under-Lyme. See below for all the exhibitions.
All Saints Church
- Award
- Fresh
- Awarded
- Fresh Talent
- People and Place
- Place Setting
- International Exchange with the Indian Ceramics Triennale
- Staffordshire University
- Recast
All Saints also featured the Tactile Project Space, where you were invited to explore, take part, and get hands-on with clay, guided by our talented and friendly ceramic artists. The tiles that were made in the space will be installed in the city to create a wildflower meadow.
Partner venues
At The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, multidisciplinary artist and writer Osman Yousefzada’s Embodiments of Memory considered life after death and the process of grief, offering a healing space for contemplation, memorial and ritual
William Cobbing’s Social Substance at AirSpace Gallery, presented a series of new video, sculpture, and performance pieces, which explored a playful and ambiguous interaction between people immersed in mounds of formless clay.
At The Brampton Museum, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Neil Brownsword’s Obsolescence and Renewal extended the artist’s examination of marginalised histories associated with the origins of British ceramic manufacture.
