Winning essays in the 'Speak for yourself' competition with an introduction to the project, supported by the HEAD trust and SW Arts

I am a founder member of the Interpreting Ceramics Research Collaboration (ICRC), a group of six individuals from four HE institutions (BSAD, UWE, UWA and UWIC). Motivated by the dearth of academic writing that directly addresses ceramics, and the lack of a ceramics specific journal, we launched the electronic, peer-reviewed journal Interpreting Ceramics with a symposium at the VandA in 2000 (www.interpretingceramics.com ISSN 1471-146X). It is the first international, refereed journal devoted to ceramics and was the first electronic journal to be listed on the Design Index. I am submissions editor and our editorial board includes some of the most significant individuals in ceramics today. We see ceramics as a very wide field of activities and look for social and cultural awareness in the articles we publish.
At the journal launch, ceramist Edmund de Waal gave an impassioned speech about the need for ceramists to articulate ideas about their own practices. Interpreting Ceramics has acted as a vehicle for a number of ICRC research projects and 'Speak for Yourself', which I led, responded to de Waal's concerns. With funding from the Arts Council and the Head Trust, we held a day seminar at BSAD in September 2005 followed by a writing competition, for which we offered cash prizes. There was an open, international entry, and an entry restricted to UK based students. The judging panel consisted of myself (chair), Edmund de Waal, Nick Lees, Matthew Partington and Linda Sandino. Entries came from Canada, Nigeria, the USA, Mexico and France as well as the United Kingdom and the results were published, with my introduction, in Interpreting Ceramics, issue 7. (http://www.uwic.ac.uk/ICRC/issue007/introduction.htm)