Production Line: Collecting Ephemeral Clay Practice.
Production Line (2015) is the lead output of an investigation into the issues surrounding the collection of ephemeral work in clay. A floor-to-ceiling delicately textured construction, the work evokes the lush detail of 18th-century ceramics – Cummings having utilised a process of extruding clay by hand, frequently employed on historic porcelain figurines. Part sculpture, part performance, the work grapples with the “live” nature of clay and the choreography of material in transit. Today it exists in the collection of three museums as archival material, including photographs and films. Two additional works, Model for a Common Room (2018) and This Was Now (2020), complete the portfolio and support this inquiry. See Portfolio Booklet for documentation of research dimensions.
- Submitting institution
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The University of Westminster
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- qqv9v
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- Production Line, made in February 2015 at Southampton City Art Gallery; Model for a Common Room, February– June 2018, Victoria Gallery & Museum, University of Liverpool; This Was Now, March-September 2020, Wolverhampton Art Gallery
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of production
- February
- Year of production
- 2015
- URL
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-
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Cummings’s output addresses the problems of acquiring ephemeral clay works, recording their presence in a collection and according those records the same status as their physical collections. This research builds on Cummings’s work at the V&A in 2010 and her membership of the University of Westminster’s Ceramics Research Centre, whose work in the expanded field explores ceramics practices in relation to museums. Her research specifically addresses nuances relating to the handmade that do not always translate into contemporary collection approaches relevant to current practice and discourse of clay practitioners working internationally.
Through Cummings’ research, museums are finding ways to address the problems of acquiring ephemeral clay works, recording their presence in a collection and according those records the same status as their physical collections. In a radical break with the conventions of collecting craft, Southampton City Art Gallery, York Art Gallery and Shipley Art Gallery – three museums with existing ceramic collections – acquired Production Line through the Contemporary Art Society’s Craft Acquisition Scheme. The process for acquisition of this work established a new precedent for the Scheme.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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