Externalising the Archive

Spode Museum is committed to working with leading artists to explore new ways of collection interpretation. In 2019, Neil Brownsword curated Externalising the Archive, a site-specific multi- media installation created for the 2019 British Ceramics Biennial, which re-evaluated an endangered mould collection housed at the former Spode site.

As by-products, moulds are rarely preserved for posterity due to their perceived low value and space required to house them. A survey Stoke-on- Trent City Council undertook when the original factory closed recorded in excess of 70,000 moulds within eleven buildings, dating from c.1850 to 2008. A vast majority of working moulds from c2005 – 2008 were rationalised, as the site and its buildings continue to be regenerated. With no inventory, these tools of mass production represent an ‘untapped’ archive that illuminates both technological developments and stylistic change.

Alert to the mass-scale of the collection and its retention, Externalising the Archive, explored the use of photogrammetry and 3D scanning to support the creation of digital surrogates as a means of preserving their physical information. A series of events, which engaged the public with the ‘live digitisation’ of a selection of mould typologies and shapes, increased an awareness of heritage at risk, and the potentials of new technology in its documentation. Brownsword also initiated the digitisation of the physical environments of four of the former factory site’s mould stores. Partners at Staffordshire University transformed these into an interactive tour, enabling visitors to navigate their way into previously inaccessible spaces through touch screen technology and virtual reality.

All digital assets generated through the project were donated to the Spode Museum Trust, where this archive will be accessible to a range of researchers, artists, designers, historians and others interested in design, industry and social history. As an ongoing project, the digital models offer scope for new modes of interpretation, which reconnect aspects of tangible and intangible heritage associated with British ceramic design and manufacture.

Following Brownsword’s intervention, Stoke-on-Trent City Archaeology Service more than doubled the scale of its retention strategy of the moulds. For more information: http://eprints.staffs.ac.uk/6770/

The project team consisted of Professor Neil Brownsword, David Edwards, Richard Harper and Emma Fallows. The project was supported by Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent City Archaeology Service and funded by Arts Council England