Gŵyl Serameg Ryngwladol | International Ceramics Festival 2019 from International Ceramics Festival on Vimeo.
The ICF is Europe’s premier ceramics festival which is held at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on the campus of Aberystwyth University on the mid-Wales coast. Since it began in 1987, the three-day festival has grown to become the UK’s leading ceramics event. It offers teachers, students, ceramic artists, collectors, working potters and amateurs and lovers of craft, the chance to meet and study the work of distinguished, internationally known potters and ceramicists from Wales, the UK and around the world.
The Festival attracts over 1000 people who attend lectures, watch practical demonstrations and visit our special exhibitions over a long weekend at the end of June or early July. Our international demonstrators show skills and techniques on our specially adapted stage and also have their own workspaces – enabling personal discussion about their work. The focus is both practical and inspirational – kilns are built, pots are made and fired.
The Festival supports emerging makers and has opportunities for students and recent graduates who work with clay through ceramics, fine art or 3-D design courses. If you are a teaching organisation and would like us to arrange a visit to talk to your students please contact us at the festival office.
The Festival offer visitors opportunities to take part during the festival with a variety of hands on activities, as well as being able to vote for the Lifetime Achievement award and donate their work to the Cup Sale.The festival is sponsored by Potclays, one of the UK’s main ceramics suppliers, and is supported by other ceramic supply companies. It has financial support from the Welsh Arts Council and the Welsh Government.
The organisers are Wales’s two potters groups, North Wales Potters and South Wales Potters together with Aberystwyth University.
North Wales Potters Association brings together people from all walks of life who have an interest in clay; professional potters, amateurs, students, teachers or collectors. Our aim is to educate and stimulate by the exchange of techniques, ideas and philosophy, whilst providing marketing and publicity opportunities for our membership with our exhibition programme.
We have a full calendar of events, which include demonstrations and presentations by UK and international guest potters. Over shared food and shared activity we experience new techniques and skills to implement in our own working practice using the fantastic material we are all fascinated with, clay. If you would like to learn more about us please visit our website http://www.northwalespotters.wales/
South Wales Potters, the first regional potters’ group in Britain, was established in 1964. The association has a wide range of members and welcomes anyone who shares its aims and interests, whether professional, student, hobby potter or those with an interest in ceramics. Its aims are to continue advancing the skills and understanding of its members and provide opportunities for the marketing of their work while promoting public awareness and appreciation. This is facilitated by demonstrations, lectures and social events which also provide the opportunity to meet, exchange ideas, and benefit from mutual support.
Members are kept up to date on activities by a quarterly magazine, ‘Shards’. A website offers the opportunity to display images of potters’ work and provides a platform for news, opinions and technical developments which is freely accessed by both members and the general public. An update service also ensures that those with computer access are contacted directly when appropriate, with the remainder being updated by post.
http://www.southwalespotters.org.uk/
Award winning Aberystwyth Arts Centre is recognised as ‘a national flagship for the arts’ with facilities unrivalled throughout much of the UK. The Arts Centre welcomes over 700,000 visitors each year, with a full and busy programme of performances, cinema, exhibitions and special events and the most extensive community arts and education service in Wales.
Facilities within the venue include a concert hall, theatre, galleries, cinema, studio, and an array of purpose built workshop facilities including ceramics studio, photographic suite and dance studios. A new addition in 2010 were the distinctive Creative Units; a hub of studios and spaces for organisations and individuals working in the creative industries, they are also home for the Arts Centre’s UK and international Artists in Residence.
www.aberystwythartscentre.co.uk
The Arts Centre is also home to the University’s Ceramic Collection. The collection is part of the an Accredited Museum of the School of Art, in the Faculty of Art and Social Sciences at Aberystwyth University. The collection is particularly noted for its studio pottery of the period 1920-1940 and for contemporary ceramics from the 1970s until the present. The collection has fine examples of pottery by Bernard Leach, Michael Cardew, Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie, Norah Braden, Charles and Nell Vyse, William Staite Murray and Reginald Wells. The collection also includes a fine body of nineteenth century slipware and Welsh porcelain of Nantgarw and Swansea. The main collection was formed during 1920-1936 and since 1974, there has been an active acquisitions policy culminating in over 2000 works, many are acquired through the ICF. It is supported by a Ceramic Archive.
Board of Directors:
Chair: Moira Vincentelli (Aberystwyth University)
Ffion Rhys (Aberystwyth University)
Jo-Anna Duncalf (North Wales Potters)
Julia Elliott (North Wales Potters)
Jyoti Parmer (South Wales Potters)
Peter Midmore (South Wales Potters)
Melanie van de Velde (South Wales Potters)
Billy Adams
Hasan In
Bev Milward
Click the link below to find information on past demonstrators and festival events. Click on the text below each image to download the full programmes from the past festivals:
International Ceramics Festival » Festival Programme Archive
