Studio Sessions
Being Born
with Julia Schuster
January 2025
About the Studio Session
There are emotional, material, and experiential parallels between our intimate and complex experiences of being born, giving birth to another human, and the creation of work in clay. Alongside lead artist Julia Schuster—who is also a doula—participants will consider the role of care across and within these processes.
Much like clay, our bodies are simultaneously fragile and resilient, capable of change and endowed with memory. What can we, as tactile makers, learn or translate from the path of the doula and the process of birth? How can we compassionately listen to clay? How can we compassionately respond to each other?
About the Lead Artist
Julia Schuster (*1989, Vienna, Austria) is a visual artist currently residing in the Gothenburg region, Sweden. Her artistic practice manifests as clay and ceramic installations that blend seamlessly with photography, video performances, and written compositions, which take on the form of letters, poems, and artists' books. Her work explores the intricate connections between soil, the human body and emotional landscapes.
Schuster holds an MA in Ceramics from the Royal College of Art in London and a BA in Design from the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy. She has undertaken residencies in Denmark, the United Kingdom, Nepal, South Korea, and is currently part of the Crafts and Writing Residency funded by the Board for Handicrafts and the Cultural Administration of Västra Götaland, Sweden. Selected exhibitions include Gyeonggi Ceramics Bienniale 2024, South Korea; Species, Soil and Successors, Oyoun, Berlin; (X)sites land art biennial, Sweden; dhak dhak ho-hum ah eekff iii ie, Röda Sten Konsthall, Gothenburg; Manifesto for Clay, Gothenburg International Biennial for Contemporary Art Extended Programme; British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke-on-Trent; Palinsesti, Italy, and Photo Kathmandu, Nepal.
She is a recipient of 2024 The Swedish Arts Grants Committee two-year working grant, 2023 Västsvenska Kulturfonden, 2018 Future Lights in Ceramics Award and 2015 Sir Eduardo Paolozzi Travel Grant. Schuster is represented in the collections of Goheung Buncheong Culture Museum, Hasselblad Foundation Library, Austrian Cultural Forum London Library, Marlborough College, amongst others. Since 2019 she is an elected member of the International Academy of Ceramics.
Logistics
This session is scheduled for Sundays, January 5, 12, 19, & 26 from 9-11am PST (that’s Los Angeles time).
Registration is $250 and includes all four sessions.
Participants gather via Zoom.