MA Ceramics

Amanda is a socially engaged artist and community gardener who graduated MA Ceramics in 2021. Amanda co-founded the Exeter Seed Bank in 2020, gaining CIC status in 2021. The Seed Bank, of which she is now co-director, revives the ancient craft of community seed-saving, delivers activities that support environmental sustainability and circular economy principles as well as encouraging urban environmental and biodiverse agency.Amanda’s practice specialises in delivering creative and environmental arts projects that include all sections of the community in a shared purpose towards nature connection and its stewardship. Her aims is to embed art into everyday life and she works with clay and other media as projects demand.

From a BA (Hons) in Contemporary Crafts from University College Falmouth, Zenna graduated a Master’s degree in Ceramics from Arts University Plymouth in 2021 with a Distinction. Zenna is predominantly a ceramic sculpture, incorporating themes of narrative, character and nature into her pieces. Inspired by her experiences of growing up in Cornwall and her connection to its landscape, cultural traditions and mythology, Zenna use porcelain clay as well as incorporating found objects such as wood and vegetation to her pieces. Zenna also leads on the initiative Flookan Ceramics, a ceramics studio set within St Austell’s historic Market House, with a community of talented makers and Cornish clay at its heart.

Maia’s practice follows an understanding of clay as a material with its own agency, to be interacted with, rather than acted upon. Her interest in giving physical form to haptic communication results in forms organically emerging. This culminates with an object as a record of the holistic practice, the firing process allowing the object to become an archive of the making process. Maia co-founded In The Making, a collaborative project between herself and artist Tressa Thomas, running workshops with a focus on making as a vehicle for community building and healing.