The British Ceramics Biennial, focusing on high-end, one-off designs, has just opened in Stoke-on-Trent. Meanwhile Wedgwood, the biggest name in the history of industrial pottery manufacture, teeters on the brink of closure. In May the US owners, who saved the company from receivership, said they wanted to outsource 225 manufacturing jobs to Indonesia. Wedgwood may cling on in Stoke, but only as a distribution point. One-off collectibles surely are not the answer for the industry.
The art pieces at the biennial, although generally excellent, seemed like an industry's cry for help. Neil Brownsword, a celebrated, Stoke-born ceramicist, showed scavenged offcuts from closed potteries with a film of a demolition. Paul Scott exhibited plates from the old Spode pottery, adorned with transfers. "Spode Works Closed", read one, in a blue and white willow pattern.
Yet amid all the stories of demise are tales of hope. Emma Bridgewater is looking to expand. William and Rosemary Dorling are holding on, too: when the Burleigh pottery whose produce they sold by mail order went into receivership, they bought the Victorian factory and now make china in the same way as it was 100 years ago, though on a much smaller scale. Far from dancing on an industry's grave, the biennial highlights its refusal to die.
Tim Abrahams is associate editor of Blueprint magazine
