Beyond Preservation: Re-evaluating Intangible Cultural Heritage in the UK Ceramic Industry

Beyond Preservation was presented at the international Industrial Crafts Research Network (ICRN) Inaugural symposium, co-hosted by the University of California Irvine, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Nottingham Trent University. 'The ICRN is an international, interdisciplinary research network of academics, museum professionals, designers and practitioners dedicated to the study of and communication of skill and knowledge within industrial crafts. It focuses on skilled practices specific to industrial contexts. It deploys ethnography and leverages the theoretical perspectives of embodied, enactive and distributed cognition to understand these practices in the context of tools, materials, procedures and working environments. The ICRN addresses a range of questions that include: How can museums preserve and present the skilled practice in industrial crafts? Can we reconstruct embodied knowledges when no skilled practitioners survive using sources in archives, visual and material culture? What combination of methodologies can most accurately document and express skilled practices? Do theories of cognition help us to understand skilled practice? How do we build exhibits that communicate such working knowledges? Beyond Preservation: Re-evaluating Intangible Cultural Heritage in the UK Ceramic Industry was peer reviewed and selected for Panel 3: Artist Interventions in Exhibiting Industrial History. It addressed the question - 'what can we learn from makers and practitioners about documenting and exhibiting embodied knowledge?' Abstract Since 2003, Neil Brownsword has been engaged in mapping the impact of global economics upon traditional ceramic manufacture in his hometown of Stoke-on-Trent. Using a range of intersecting approaches that include social practice, collaborative performance, object installation and re-enactment, his works have drawn greater critical attention to people and traditional knowledge marginalised by regional industrial change. Whilst advances in automation technology and outsourcing have facilitated greater productivity, once commonplace skills associated with ceramic manufacture have been displaced, threatening the continuation of traditional know-how. This presentation elucidates Brownsword’s artistic projects which re-evaluate intangible cultural heritage within Stoke-on-Trent’s ceramic sector. To view a recording of the presentation see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPzsQdn8Ce