16 and 17 June, 1-5pm
Free

From 16 June Wysing’s gallery will be transformed into a space for making things; products that are easy to make, useful, and pleasing. Book your place to help us make things to be fired in our rare Anagama, wood-burning, kiln. Book your place at the workshops here. 

If you'd like to help with the 48 hour firing, register your availability here.

The ‘in common ownership’ designs for the products have been developed over the past year and combine ideas and skills drawn from an UK-Korea exchange co-ordinated by Grizedale Arts and Wysing Arts Centre. Master potter Gyung-kyun Shin, black bamboo master Seonhui Choe, and chef Gae-hwa Lim, developed initial designs with UK designer/maker Tom Philipson and Grizedale Arts. These designs will be further evolved into a ‘family’ of products at Wysing by Korean designer Jungyou Choi, and potter, Hyunmin Shin, during a residency at Wysing in June and July. 

The designs will make up a family of products for domestic use. Nests of bowls and bento boxes, chop sticks and spoons and many other fusions have been developed to be made with the simplest of means and homemade tools.

Potter, Hyunmin Shin, will be in-residence at Wysing refining the products and preparing Wysing’s onsite Anagama kiln for a spectacular 48-hour firing in early July. Wysing’s wood-fired Anagama kiln was built in 1998 by Japanese potter Izumihara Masanobu to a traditional Bizen, tear-drop shaped, design.

Over the course of three weeks, products will be made in Wysing’s gallery, where they will also be stored and dried, creating a working space and exhibition that will illustrate some of the key ideas behind the project, drawing on the Arts and Crafts movement, the Korean Intangible National Asset register and many other design revolutions.

During Saturday 7 July, a Study Day with invited speakers and contributors will explore the themes of materiality, craft and making, and there will be an opportunity to visit the kiln whilst the firing is taking place.

Further artists involved in the UK-Korea exchange programme will contribute to the thinking and inspiration behind the project, and the aesthetic presentation of their research over the past year. This includes UK artists Aaron Angell and Mark Essen who recently completed a residency in Korea, as well as Jina Lee and the Fairland Collective.

You are invited to join us over the weekend of 16 and 17 June to help make some of these products, working with designers and potters and using clay, which will be fired in Wysing’s Anagama Kiln. 

The gallery will remain open every day from 16 June to 15 July and will include works in production, alongside research that has informed the object designs.

Making Everyday builds on a previous collaboration with Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, Joe Hartley and Sam Buckley. The UK-Korea residency exchange is funded by Arts Council Korea (ARKO) and Arts Council of England. With thanks to Ben Brierley and Lawrence Epps.