Cardiff School of Art and Design’s Ceramics department (CSAD Ceramics) has announced the launch of its first UK-wide ‘CSAD Ceramics Excellence Award’, devised to highlight the continued benefit of studying ceramics in secondary and further education.

The aim of the CSAD Ceramics Excellence Award is two-fold, to raise the profile of clay as a creative medium within schools and further education colleges and introduce to new emergent makers the potential of a unique creative trajectory at Cardiff School of Art and Design.

With sponsorship through Potclays ‘Educlaytion Grant’, and an esteemed panel of judges, the award aims to celebrate the qualitative gains of an involved material-based arts curriculum.

Judges include creative director of Llantarnam Grange, Hywel Pontin; master potter, Geoff Swindell and Cardiff and Vale College tutor and ceramist, Billy Adams.

On Wednesday 20th June at 6.45pm, winners from the competing schools will be announced for the following categories:

- First Prize for: A-Level/baccalaureate/Foundation
- First Prize for: GCSE and under
- Four commendation Awards

Alongside the award and hot on the tail of Cardiff School of Art and Design’s annual Degree Show, the Ceramics department will also be hosting a sixth form art exhibition to encourage and showcase the best arts practice from around South Wales.

Over the past 6 years, Cardiff School of Art and Design has completely redesigned its undergraduate curriculum so that students can learn the in-depth knowledge of a specific subject area they crave as part of their chosen degree, while also testing out new possibilities and pushing the boundaries of their discipline through the school’s innovative ‘transdisciplinary’ curriculum.

Dr Natasha Mayo, Programme Director of Ceramics at Cardiff Metropolitan University, explained:

“Our progressive curriculum enables students to take greater ownership of their experience through self-selected modules focusing on professionalism, entrepreneurship and internationalism.

“Second year students can choose to study two of up to thirty modules as diverse as ‘Art and the Conscious Mind, International Study, Work Experience, Setting up a Business, Learning about PhD’s to Acrylic Painting. Knowledge obtained by students in these modules can then be applied to their ceramics studies making their experience genuinely transdisciplinary.

“For ceramics, this means you can spend time developing material understanding, gaining a breadth of ceramics skills and at the same time venture beyond it. You can re-situate Ceramics in relation to other ways of thinking: sculpture, fine art, textiles, product design, fashion design, illustration, animation; to prompt new ideas, interpretations and connections that enhance the way we think about it.”

The CSAD Ceramics Excellence Award prizes will include Potclay vouchers to enable students to continue to build on their practice, as well as an article and a virtual exhibition featured in their acclaimed Educlaytion website: https://www.potclays.co.uk/studio/pages/17843/educlaytion-interviews-with-award-winners

The exhibition will be open to the public from the 21st June until the 26th June from 9am – 5.30pm, at Cardiff Metropolitan’s Llandaff Campus, Western Avenue, Cardiff CF5 2YB.