Cast of Thousands is a project by British Ceramics Biennial aiming to bring together schoolchildren in Stoke-on-Trent with leading ceramic artists to create and participate in a large-scale public art event. The event will feature a mass of handmade ceramic figures, representative of the population of Stoke-on-Trent, the Clay People of the Ceramic City.

For BCB2019, we have worked with schools in the CLAY School Partnership with the aim to create 40,000 figures – one to represent every schoolchild within the city. The first phase of the project, led by artist Peter Jones, worked with students and teachers from The Willows Primary School to develop the form of the figures. Since then 25 schools and members of the local communities in Stoke-on-Trent have made figures that will be on display across the four sites of the 2019 British Ceramics Biennial Festival.