Richmond BC, Canada #richmondartgallerybc
Pinch pots are usually made by compressing clay patiently between fingers and thumb to build height and volume. Instead, featured artist Xinwei Che 車昕蔚 uses her entire body, for instance pressing clay between the palm of her hand and the curve of her knee, so that the resulting vessels carry the rough imprint of her form. These can be seen in the Gallery’s current exhibition It begins with knowing and not knowing.
In this workshop, Xinwei share more about her time-centered material practice and invites participants to explore making clay pinch pots collaboratively with each other. Sensing the thickness of clay between one’s own and another’s fingertips, a solitary act becomes a collective exercise in close listening, negotiation, and support.
Limited to 12 participants. Not recommended for participants under 16 years of age.
$5.00 + taxes registration fee includes all materials.
About the Artist:
Xinwei Che 車昕蔚 has a material-centered, temporal practice. She attends to the rhythms of material movements to expand time and resist its easy commodification.
She lives between her home-country, Singapore, and the rainy city of Vancouver, BC. She holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design (2015) and an MFA from Emily Carr University of Art & Design (2022). She was awarded the National Arts Council Overseas Art Scholarship for her BFA, and the Young Talent Programme Prize in 2017. With support from the National Art Gallery of Kuala Lumpur and the National Arts Council of Singapore, she has collaborated with communities to create libraries for shadows and for fears.
In her recent solo exhibition at Esplanade (Singapore) and artist residency at Treasure Hill Artist Village (Taipei), she created a series of material performances that hold space for experiencing deep geological time and embodied ritual time. She is currently a sessional faculty at Emily Carr University and was recently nominated for the 2024 AICAD Teaching Fellowship.
