The Performing Object: Ceramics and Performance

This book explores how ceramic objects are themselves sites of and for performance. Examining their use as cosmologically symbolic objects and vessels for sound in the performance of Japanese noh theatre, the book proceeds to examine how ceramic objects are sites for performative activity in a range of contexts, from the domestic sphere to the museum, the theatre to the street, the studio to the clinic. The book explores the work of a range of international ceramic artists who are the forefront of exploring ceramic objects as multivalent sites of performance. To focus on objects as the site for performance is to critique the discourses on performance art dependent upon institutional exhibition.