For Collect 2026, County Hall Pottery presented a curatorial framework that positions clay as a universal, living material shaped by culture, history, and daily life. Our presentation highlighted ceramics as a contemporary field defined as much by experimentation, process, and community as by finished form. The selected works brought together artists whose practices expand what ceramics can look like and how it can operate today, foregrounding making as a site of inquiry, connection, and contemporary thought.
County Hall Pottery at Collect, 27 February – 1 March 2026, Somerset House, London, UK
At the centre of our presentation is a commitment to material-led practice. We are interested in how artists work with clay not simply as a medium, but as an active collaborator. Many of the works reveal deep material literacy, including an understanding of how clay behaves, how it records touch, how it responds to heat and pressure, and how it can be pushed, tested, and transformed. Rather than privileging seamless finish alone, the selection embraces works that hold evidence of process, decision-making, and experimentation, reflecting our belief that knowledge in ceramics is generated through doing, and that making itself is a form of thinking.
A second key narrative is ceramics as an open and evolving learning culture. At County Hall Pottery, the studio, workshop, and exhibition space are interconnected sites where skills, ideas, and questions circulate. At Collect, this translated into presenting work that invites curiosity about how it was made, why certain choices were taken, and what possibilities those choices open up. Our aim was to move away from reading ceramics solely as static objects and instead frame it as an ongoing, exploratory practice that values time, attention, and embodied knowledge.
County Hall Pottery at Collect, 27 February – 1 March 2026, Somerset House, London, UK
Our curation also reflected County Hall Pottery’s identity as an artist-led organisation committed to building a fair and sustainable ceramics ecosystem. We champion practices that move between art, craft, and design, often blurring boundaries between functional object, sculptural form, installation, and cross-disciplinary experimentation. We are particularly focused on supporting ambitious emerging and mid-career artists and practices that push technical, conceptual, or material boundaries. Across the presentation, we resisted narrow hierarchies between disciplines, functional and conceptual, or studio and gallery. Instead, we propose ceramics as a rigorous, expansive, and socially embedded field, deeply connected to contemporary culture. Collect 2026 became a snapshot of the wider ecology at County Hall Pottery, where making, learning, exhibiting, and exchange happen side by side, and where clay is understood as both an ancient material and a vital tool for contemporary thinking.
Exhibiting Artists
Alex Simpson, Connor Coulston, Edmund Davies & Otis Ingrams, Elizabeth Jackson, Elliott Denny, Emily Stapleton-Jefferis, Emma Louise Payne, Heather Gibson, Hilary Bird Mayo, Ho Lai, Irina Razumovskaya, Kaye Blegvad, Toni De Jesus, Uriel Caspi
We are deeply grateful to everyone who visited our stand, whether for a conversation, to explore the works, or simply to see what we do. Watching the space come to life, reconnecting with familiar faces, and meeting so many new ones made our debut incredibly special.
Available Works: We have compiled a PDF of the works presented, click link to view:
CHP Collect 2026 Available Works
If you are interested in any pieces, please get in touch with us via gallery@countyhallpottery.com