[Grounded Conversations] Shaping Clay

Grounded Conversations: Shaping Clay

The potter’s wheel has long been central to a ceramicist’s practice, associated with the craft of throwing and the creation of vessel forms. For most ceramicists, the vessel serves either as a foundation or a point of departure. In the exhibition “Continuity, Persistence, Line": Thinking Through Clay – A Selection of Works by Delia Prvački, it is the act of throwing itself that inspires Prvački, drawing from keramoplastika— an approach that emphasises plasticity while sustaining regard for the material and its history.

In dialogue with these ideas, Grounded Conversations: Shaping Clay brings together Singapore-based clay artists, Ahmad Abu Bakar and Delia Prvački to explore how shaping clay on the wheel can extend beyond utility into the realms of installation, sculpture, and performance. Their distinct approaches are deeply informed by their lived experiences, ideologies, and the visual cultures that surround their practices.

Installation view, "Continuity, Persistence, Line": Thinking Through Clay – A Selection of Works by Delia Prvački, NUS Museum, 2024.

Curated by Ling Jia Le, "Continuity, Persistence, Line": Thinking Through Clay – A Selection of Works by Delia Prvački explores the temporal layers embedded in Prvački’s ceramics practice. By focusing on how her use of traditional techniques intersects with contemporary experimentation, the exhibition presents her work as a continuum of past, present, and future, reflecting her life’s journey and ever-evolving artistic process.

Panellists

Delia Prvački (b. 1950, Baia Mare (Northern Transylvania), Romania), a Romanian-born Singaporean artist, works primarily with clay to produce sculptures and site-specific installations. Grounded in the awareness of the historical and theoretical discourse of ceramics as a craft and art form, Prvački’s practice delves into themes of non-renewable resources, including their access, circulation, extraction, histories, mythologies, and mining communities.

Prvački graduated from the Bucharest Institute of Fine Arts in 1975 and moved to Singapore in 1992. Since her relocation to Singapore together with fellow artist and partner, Milenko Prvački, her ceramics have evolved in their conceptual and formal interests as she responds to newer stimuli of culture, economics and politics. She has also developed a strong practice in public art. Her collaborations with the NUS community have been significant, including projects with the Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials (I-FIM) and the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials (CA2DM).

Ahmad Abu Bakar (b. 1963, Malaysia) is a Singapore-based artist known for his works in ceramics and sculpture. He graduated with a Diploma in Fine Arts (Ceramics) from LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts in 1989 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Sculpture) from the University of Tasmania in 1995. Returning to Singapore, he taught ceramics and 3D studies at LASALLE College of the Arts, where he also pursued his Masters of Fine Arts with RMIT, before leaving in 2008 to focus on his practice.

Ahmad has exhibited widely in Singapore and internationally, with highlights including the Jakarta Contemporary Ceramics Biennale (2009), the Singapore Art Museum’s 8Q inaugural exhibition, the Singapore Biennale (2013), and Secret Archipelago at Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2015). His first solo exhibition, Ini Tanah Aku Punya, was held at Jendela Gallery in 2012.

Since 2009, Ahmad has also been an art instructor with the Singapore Prison Service, mentoring inmates through 3D studies and fostering creative confidence. He is currently an adjunct lecturer at NIE (NTU).

Moderator

Ling Jia Le, Public Art Executive, NUS Museum

As NUS Museum’s Public Art Executive, Ling Jia Le manages the university’s public art registry and initiatives. Driven by a passion for collaboration and innovation, his work encompasses the conservation, curation, and programming of public art on campus. This includes projects such as the Artist-in-Residence program and new commissions at various NUS colleges and departments. Jia Le recently curated the exhibition "Continuity, Persistence, Line": Thinking through Clay – A Selection of Works by Delia Prvački (2024 - 2025) at NUS Museum.

“Continuity, Persistence, Line” Thinking Through Clay – A Selection of Works by Delia Prvacki

This publication, “Continuity, Persistence, Line” Thinking Through Clay – A Selection of Works by Delia Prvački, accompanies the exhibition of the same title. It includes a curatorial essay by Ling Jia Le and contributions by T.K. Sabapathy and Gunalan Nadarajan, which variously explore aspects of Prvački’s conceptual approaches and practice. Additionally, the publication features a dialogue between the artist and Kenneth Tay, and a survey of writings on Prvački by Shahira Banu. These elements collectively provide a preliminary account of the artist’s history, personal views, and motivations alongside an examination of written sources.

The publication will be on sale at the programme.

Grounded Conversations

Presenting a series of distinct projects on how art practitioners have begun to adopt comprehensive paradigms in their fieldwork methods traditionally associated with anthropological and historical research, Grounded Conversations brings together practitioners from the contemporary art world to unravel this ‘anthropological turn’.