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Archaeologist Rose Ferraby continues her reflections on the very human need to craft objects from the materials available to us. In this central essay in the third series of EarthWorks, Rose rolls up her sleeves to try her hand at pottery-making. From hand-formed pots to wheel-thrown vessels, ceramic items have played a key role in the shaping of everyday life and cultural identity for thousands of years. As time has passed, the original function of some pots may well be forgotten, but archaeologists are discovering new information about the food such vessels might have held through examinations into their surfaces. And clay itself has memory, certain types - like porcelain - recall their previous forms in the heat of the kiln. In the pottery studio, Rose reflects on how the act of throwing a pot creates connections with other makers, a respect for the craft experienced across time.

Rose Ferraby is an artist, archaeologist and writer whose EarthWorks essays explore traces of human history around the British Isles. In the first series, Rose considered broad aspects of landscape - Wold, Fen, Mountain, Island and Moor, places in which archaeology can reveal change and human adaptations through time; and in the second series, she zoomed in closer to examine different cultural spaces preserved in the archaeological record - Town, Grave, Quarry, Field and Monument, all of which serve enduring purposes to this day. This new series focuses in fine-grained detail on the materials that have shaped human cultures and societies. Looking in turn at stone, wood, pottery, leather and metal, and the ways in which they’re crafted and understood, she reflects on how these materials can connect us to landscape, community and place.

Written and presented by Rose Ferraby
Produced by Mark Smalley
A Reduced Listening production for ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio 3
Series Image: ‘Dark Peak’ by Rose Ferraby