Wendy gained her doctorate by Previously Published Work in 2019.

Ubuntu manifest: Decolonising research & curatorial practice in ceramics.

The thesis surveys ideas about decolonising research and curatorial practice and engenders new approaches to the understanding, appreciation, and experience of modern and contemporary ceramic art. It focusses on two recent creative outputs. The initial is Scorched Earth (Jacana Media, 2016), a scholarly publication, and the latter is a socially-engaged international exhibition, Post- colonialism? (2016/2017). These research projects are unified by a specific geo-political and ideological trope – settler colonialism; and a particular studio practice – ceramics.

Responding to the dearth of critical scholarship on commercial, popular and tourist ceramics on the African sub-continent, ‘Scorched Earth:100 Years of Southern African Potteries’ surveys 32 potteries that produced industrial artware between 1880 and 1980. This is the first substantial scholarly reference text in this field; and has produced both changes in South African museum collection policies & exhibition practices, and alterations in the art market.

The international residency and exhibition, Post-colonialism?, held at the Benyamini Contemporary Centre in Tel Aviv, Israel, explored the settler colonial theory in a political environment characterised by ongoing gross human rights abuses. The exhibition spoke out against the occupation of the Palestinian and other annexed territories, and created a space where artists could ‘dare to dream’. It contributed significantly to the local ceramics scene, as the first major politically-engaged international ceramics exhibition in the Israel, and has been recognised as one of the ten most significant Israeli exhibitions of 2017.

The moral philosophy ubuntu was proposed as a key component of a self-reflexive methodology for research and curatorial projects. The term cryrator was advanced as constituting an approach to curatorial praxis in conflict zones. These concepts enable new ways of thinking on how to historicise, decolonise, bridge and transcend disciplines via inclusive, historically situated, socially-engaged research and curatorial projects.

Academia

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