Art to sound out an environmental crisis.

 

Environmental concerns are centre stage at the British Ceramic Biennial this year, both in the work of the artists being presented and a minor public relations faux pas over the use of clay from HS2 in the public engagement area.

 

The main exhibition is taking place in the chilly, not just in aesthetic terms, surroundings of the former All Saints Church in Stoke-on-Trent. An arts and crafts place of worship built with potter’s money when the city was the world centre of ceramic manufacturing, now reinvented as an arts space.

 

The environment, specifically the harm done to sea life by the overuse of marine sonar is the subject of Sounding Line by Mella Shaw. She combines sculptures representing whales ear bones, the clay used to make which has been infused with material taken from the carcasses of whales washed up on the shore of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides with a video of one of these sculptures being returned to the see and ropes that vibrate at different frequencies. This makes for a powerful representation of the impact human activity has on some of the oldest inhabitants of our planet.

 

Outage by Rebecca Griffiths continues the environmental theme by imagining a future landscape where remnants of the nuclear power industry have been dredged up from the sea. The piece was developed during her residency at The Red House in Aldeburgh near to the site of the Sizewell B power station. Griffiths has created a series of enigmatic shapes that could be pieces of some vast machine that has either decayed or been destroyed in an accident that are being reclaimed and eroded by the sea and the creatures living there. A timely reminder, perhaps, that for all the damage blundering humans do nature will always hold the whip hand by playing the longest game of all.

 

Also of note are Sequenced Ceramics by the Copper Sounds collective, a collection of pots, beaters and scaffolding poles hooked up to some clever technology that looks like it was made by Heath Robinson’s cool great grandkids and produces sounds reminiscent of Brian Eno in his pomp. Boundary by Nichola Tassie (pictured) which examines ideas around physical and social boundaries and Looking North by Dan Kelly informed by his intimate relationship with London and the tall buildings dominating its skyline.