LO5 Collaboration

Although my peers and I made our pottery products individually, the initial process of planning and discussing how we should approach our projects was definitely a collaborative effort. As the students who I worked with as well as myself were fairly new to pottery and the mechanisms behind what makes an aesthetically pleasing and sturdy pot, we found our first few sessions challenging. However, we decided to take an entire lesson to plan and brainstorm what we would like to make. Due to the vast amount of freedom we had to decide what we would like to make, this process was difficult but also incredibly creative. Ultimately, by the end of the lesson we were able to form individual ideas of our first project in this activity, through online research and also by asking questions to the teacher supervisors who already had pre-existing knowledge of pottery.

I believe that through our collaboration, we were able to discover new ideas as well as suggest our known. This meant that the ideas we had were endless, which gave us a great imagination and sense of creativity, which is crucial for being successful in this activity.

LO6 Global Value

Although I had not initially thought of the global significance of pottery, I began to get an idea of how pottery can be used on a global scale and carry important functions other than decorative elements. In this activity itself, although I am focusing on aesthetic pieces, I did carry out initial research which led to me to how ceramics are used in global development. What I learnt was that the use of ceramics as technology could be used to revolutionise industrial processes on a smaller scale. What I found most striking was that some cook stoves can cause pollution, and that women and children in developing countries suffer from respiratory illnesses such as pneumonia, caused my smoke and fumes caused by cook stoves and lack of ventilation. Sustainable ceramic technologies can be used to reduce these fumes as well as treat pathogen-contaminated water. This type of technology is not only sustainable but also has low costs which makes it a suitable alternative for daily appliances.  After my initial projects which are mainly decorative elements, I hope to carry out additional research to investigate how I could create something that promotes the global advantages of using ceramics. Lastly, I think that even by conducting individual research on pottery, I was able to grasp a deeper understanding of how this material can be used globally and carry such importance.