Studio head: doc. MgA. Gabriel Vach
Assistant: MgA. Markéta Kalivodová

“Ceramics is crazy, I hate it... But I still keep doing it.

I think that if you hate something so much, you just have to do it. You have to deal with it somehow.”

This confession of the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was written on one of the walls of the Trade Fair Palace in Prague during the 2017 exhibition called Kneaded Knowledge. The Language of Ceramics. Ai Weiwei, who had participated in the curatorial and artistic preparation of that event, revealed in another part of the exhibition that ceramics represents for him a process that is too sophisticated to be enjoyed. However, clay is one of the first materials that mankind started working with, and it keeps fascinating and attracting us to the present day.

Ceramics is one of the disciplines that merge the old and the new in a natural way. You can use state-of-the-art technical methods such as 3D modelling and 3D printing, work with materials developed for the NASA space programme or dig for clay in the yard behind your house and use it – and you will still be doing ceramics.

In the Ceramic Design Studio we give our students guidance on functional design as well as on creative work. When they receive a utilitarian assignment with specific requirements for function or production technology in one semester, they will be assigned a formally less-constrained project in the next semester. That gives them more freedom of expression and opportunities to explore their own creativity and to work with new materials. We are convinced that they can benefit from both approaches: On the one hand, they will learn to think in technical terms, work within defined constraints and to present their work in an attractive way. On the other hand, they will learn to deal with the tasks at hand in a creative and confident manner, find their own creative style and will not be afraid to push and exceed boundaries.

Ceramic Design studio webpage
and presentation on instagram and facebook