This paper, The Distributed Studio” by Janet DeBoos was first presented in 2006 at the Australian Ceramics Triennale in Brisbane, Australia. At a time when specialist ceramics courses at tertiary level were threatened through lack of enrolments and funding, the paper seemed to herald the future and certainly the intervening 13 years have proven Janet’s “crystal ball” was spot-on! Whilst tertiary courses have closed at a breathtakingly fast rate, other schools such as our own Slow Clay Centre have opened around the country, and indeed around the world, and ceramics is now basking in the glow of being “the new video” in the art world. So what’s in store for the future? How can we be sustainable in the face of this known and tangible past adversity, and how can we be sure that this current popularity is more than just an “Instagram-led recovery”?
For the Australian Ceramics Triennale in Hobart in May 2019, we invited Janet DeBoos to re-visit the original ideas in the paper to discuss, with Slow Clay Centre director Jane Sawyer, some thoughts about the future. Please read the original paper here and the following podcast was made after the panel discussion at the Triennale.