Events


2026

5 June



March - April

Symposium: Material Response:  Shaping Sustainable Practices from Clay and Waste

Material Response - Expanding Periphery Materials in a research project collaboration with Sunken Studio and the University of Leeds  2025
22 August


13 September    GreenEconomy Networking Event 
Speaking about Periphery Materials 

Speaking about Periphery Materials at Sunken Studio Open Day  17-21 September
Exhibiting Periphery Materials research at Material Matters, London Design Festival2 October



22 October Attending Clay Conference: From Waste to Resource: Circular Economies For Construction Clay Spoil

Speaking at SAIL Creative Climate Conversations 2025 17-19 OctoberSelected for RDI Summer Sessions at Dartington Hall

Last Updated 05.03.26
Chris Crawford



Potter, designer and materials researcher based in Leeds, West Yorkshire.

Moving toward less extractive, lower carbon ways of designing, making and building things.

I believe that the most interesting work happens at the intersections—between art and science, craft and industry, design and engineering. 

Painting, researching, throwing, teaching, 3D printing - I am not interested in ‘staying in my lane’. 

I enjoy big challenging problems and fresh ideas.

Instagram



Selected Projects

Contact

Bio & CV
Material Response Symposium


Images: Robin Stones
Images: Robin Stones
Images: Robin Stones
Images: Robin Stones

12.06.26

Material Response: Shaping sustainable practice through clay and waste
 Material Response concluded last Friday 5.06.26 with a symposium drawing speakers from policy, research, arts and design practice.

Through reading, writing, speaking and reinterpreting we interrogate our questions and ideas - they are exposed to and interact with the outside world- they evolve and change

Since reading Neri Oxman’s essay “The Age of Entanglement” I have returned again and again to this idea that the cross over and interrelation between disciplines (art, science, design & engineering) generates a new kind of creative energy, it creates ideas, thoughts and feelings unattainable in siloed individual practices or industries. I want to be part of, to belong, to facilitate an environment where these sorts of interactions might be possible. 

Oxman writes “Knowledge can no longer be ascribed to or produced within disciplinary boundaries, but is entirely entangled”

and further there is an

“…interrelation between these domains, where one realm can incite (r)evolution inside another; and where a single individual or project can reside in multiple dominions.”

The language is fruity and complex. I love it. Like Oxman, I think that ultimately the best things happen when we stray outside our lane, when we follow our curiosity, when we ‘release our inhibitions’ (thank you 2004 Natasha Bedingfield).

Image: Robin Stones, Research in Progress exhibition at Sunken Studio 


The gathering weight of these ideas rolling around in my mind, the revisiting, it has gradually been helping to make sense, or logic, out of the things I value... 

So many comments were about the range of speakers, and individuals at the event. About their differences but also how it all seemed to hang together, about new connections made and new curiosities unearthed. 

For me, these were the best comments. Curiosity created a space for less inhibited open discourse about our passions, interests and projects.

For discussion around our shared goal to think more critically about materials, where they come from and how we use them.




Image: Robin Stones, Research in Progress exhibition at Sunken Studio 



I enjoyed all the varied ways our speakers used language to describe their own work and respond to our collective project. For everyone there was something. Snippets and soundbites created generous offerings from our speakers.

They are jumping off points for entirely new lines of research, reading, thinking and collaborating.

Each speakers particular use of language helped us to understand their view on the world and the problems we face. Language has a unique ability to build empathy and understanding, to enable seeing the world through the eyes of another. I think this considered use of language, that builds diverse ways of thinking and seeing - will help us move toward a future which is both more equitable and more sustainable (Smith Mordak)

Offerings from the day, form my scrappy notes. If something here sparks  interest, a reaction, a laugh - I encourage you to contact the speakers, chat, collaborate, think about these ideas, form your own,  nurture them, grow them, adapt them, build them…


Moyra Derby  
“disciplinary slippage”
 “clay as a neuro-comparable material”




Will Rea 
“Materials are at the heart of Anthropology” 
“the mutation of the studio potter” 
“hidden materiality in modern studio pottery”




Isaac Lassey 
“Dr. Waste - circular economy matchmaking”
“ industrial symbiosis”




Zephie 
“the dark side of ecology” 
“...just an artist asking silly questions…” 
“glaze that tells a story about place” 
“ the story of deep time told with a plant and glaze”


Image: Robin Stones, Research in Progress exhibition at Sunken Studio 




Jamie Saye 
“creating baseline carbon footprint for future years of culture ”
 “place car travel at the bottom - where it belongs” 
“community energy project for the creative sector...”
 “only 2% of liv events have appropriate generators”




James Thompson 
“clay as a recording process”
“clay fused the artist and the building”
“unfired clay that cracks and deforms like a memory, over time”




Michaela Lesayova
“hyperlocallity” 
“re-remembering cultural heritage” 
“communal learning has been removed by industry”
“could plants be our teachers and mentors” 
“can we reframe how we perceive unwanted plants” 
“SLOC framework Small, Local, Open, Connected”




Victor Pedrosa 
“waste vs rubbish, good and bad” 
“waste as the source, the start point , not the end” 
“5 minutes of clay extraction” years of making
addressing problems at scales individual, to industry and policy



This project, the symposium. It has left me with my own thoughts and questions I’d like to pursue further. These are changing and evolving. Through reading, writing, speaking and reinterpreting our ideas are interrogated, broken and remade. But right here and now I am left with...


In a world that increasingly really doesn't need more stuff, through the process of bioregional design, and awareness of the opportunities of the circular economy can we think about the:


creation of objects that question where our materials come from and how we use them  


Objects which invite conversations about change, care, and maintenance


Objects that ultimately help us consider our values, behaviours and interactions with all material systems

I feel a pull on these questions, a pull toward the next exploration. I also feel the conversations and talks from the day beginning to settle and the next evolution, revolution of these questions percolating.




Thank you to all our wonderful speakers and everyone who came, without your generosity and willingness to share your experience and ideas none of this would have been possible.



And big Thank you to  Robin Stones at the Cultural Institute , and School of Fine Art History of Art and Cultural Studies for the lovely images of the day. And The Attic for being such a super venue for our talks.