Sarah Jamieson

The design reinforces the idea of a contemporary potters’ quarter, in that the space is designed as a set of interconnected workshops. Each potter has a space that is demarcated primarily by a color, and these colors would derive from each artist's work.  

Some of the spaces literally in-connect, as you can see that the colors overlap, and the arrangement of the plants at a 45-degree angle also fosters that feeling of interconnection as you walk through the exhibition space.

A detail that I'd really love to point out to visitors is the way that we actually created the design in the space. So you might notice that the colors on the wall are painted by hand. You can see the brush marks and there's a little wobble at the edges. Similarly, you can tell that the text has been spray painted by someone using a stencil. These are all really deliberate design detail –as distinct from a seamless paint finish and commercial printing, handmade production draws attention to the time it's taken to create this space here in the museum. The intention of this is to highlight the process of this exhibition because process is critical to this project and to highlight that this particular kerameikos, this contemporary potter’s quarter in the museum, is being assembled for a period of time.

I really gravitate towards projects that experiment with different ways of doing things, as my practice is oriented towards experimentation through design. And so for me, the project is an experiment in opening up the museum's collection for people to engage with it in a very different way than, say, if they were directly encountering an artefact.

Also, I was really comfortable with the idea that the works would be produced through a process of engaging with the context of the museum, and that we wouldn't know what the work would be until they actually came into being through an artistic process. 

Because this is very much the way that I work too, as a process-based designer. 

And if you need another reason why the project was appealing to me. I'm also a ceramicist, and so I'm really thankful to have my own potter’s quarter here in Sydney. I'm a part of a community of potters that work in a space run by Ryan Durr. And, we made the terracotta title song for the exhibition together. Our Kerameikos is at Mackenzie's Bay, so I have a lived experience of being a potter in a Kerameikos, so it felt really fitting to bring that to the project as well.

The cues that I took from the design brief, were, kind of, acted as leap off points into a creative process for me. And that really was exploring the meaning of the word Kerameikos in both the context of ancient Greece and the context of the Chau Chak Wing Museum today.

So, Kerameikos is a name for an area of ceramic production, so it's a place. Kerameikos is an ancient Greek word for ceramics, so it denotes a thing. And today, it's a process that is taking place here in the museum. And so, this created a framework for me to work with as I explored Kerameikos as a place, a thing and a process, through my designing.

My process was open and exploratory, which is exactly how I like it. So, for example, when I first came to the museum to meet the artists, I didn't bring any ideas with me. I didn't think about the project. My aim was just to come, to become immersed in the experience of being here, to observe what was going on, and to listen to what the artists were interested in.  

I asked each artist to send me three images. One of their work. One of something that caught their interest at the museum and one of their studio, or their Kerameikos. And so this was the way for me to drop into the project and to work with what the artists were seeing and doing.  

Another element of the brief was to reuse an existing display system, that the museum had commissioned from Youssofzay + Hart. And I was told to not cut it up. I was told to rearrange it and to refinish it. And so through that, the museum itself, the display system and the space became a generative constraint. And that was also something that I really sought to work with creatively.