Abstract

This paper aims to explore the inherent power that a museum collection can hold in providing stimulus for reclaiming and re-articulating the historical. This location, where both the aesthetic and the narrative maintain a strong presence, creates a familiar connection whereby, re-interpretation has the capability to reposition these elements whilst integrating contemporary societal observations. The association to both the domestic and the museum landscape become explicit in this format but also an abstraction of ideas is supported by a connection to a familiarity with the authentic object. This connection to the complex reading of objects reveals various approaches that will be explored. These developed from the premise ‘What might a museum porcelain collection look like now in the age of digital production and navigation?’
The ubiquity of clay and particularly the figurine or refined china object has a familiarity with which we are able to place semiotic reference – the visual content and narrative are primary examples, but also the nature of the use of the material and how it is interpreted historically. Ceramic ‘fired clay’ remains static due to its inherent qualities, however, this paper will demonstrate the capacity for historical ceramic objects to act as points of departure for re-interpretation. In the examination of this notion, the time-based and performative qualities of the material clay – in conjunction with new media and non-ceramic material platforms (other), will be discussed and presented to offer a 21c reading of the use and intervention of a museum collection by an artist working with clay.