The Performing Object: Ceramics as Performance - an Interdisciplinary Symposium

One-day symposium funded by the Paul Mellon Centre for the Study of British Art

Theatre Anthropology has expanded the definition of performance to recognise ‘production’ as it pertains both to theatre and associated media (i.e., theatre, film or television production) and the practice of creation in an artist’s studio (i.e., artistic production, commercial production), as well as how restored behaviour encompasses embodied technique (e.g., archaeological digs) and modes of spectator engagement in the everyday (e.g., the use of a pot). Ceramics (especially, though not exclusively, the pot) can be regarded as intrinsically performance-based objects because they hold or pour (often described as ‘performing’ a function), evince social status, express ideology, memorialise, and/or enact other functions ad infinitum. In this sense, ceramics are performing objects both in action and inaction, at home and/or in the museum.