I made this short film to document six ceramic artworks created as part of the Centring project, co-creative ceramics resaerch led by Professor Jayne Wallace.

The film was exhibited, along with the showcased pottery, at Dementia Lab Conference 2025.

Pieces are introduced by Jayne, with Michelle and Cat from Beamish Museum's Health & Wellbeing Team and Barry, a Health & Wellbeing volunteer.

The project’s name, Centring is a response to both; the ceramic practice of centring, placing and affixing a mound of clay in the middle of a pottery wheel before in order to create a stable piece of work, and the therapeutic practice of centring, a technique that can help people find balance and peace in their lives, which can be used in to help regulate stress, process trauma, and build meaningful relationships.

With Jayne, I undertook a year of participant observation at weekly workshops with the Men's Group at Beamish. We worked to support their curiosity, and nurture their development into a pottery collective.

This work is a development our longstanding research relationship with Beamish Museum’s Health & Wellbeing team, having previously explored craft practices in wood with members of the group, and other community organisations through Dovetails. This work contributes to the growing body of evidence for the importance of arts-based creative practice for people living with cognitive impairments and dementia, and the nascent Creative Ageing movement in UK.

Research funded by EPSRC as part of Centre for Digital Citizens project code EP/T022582/1

Centring: Co-Creative Ceramics in the Living Museum Wallace, J., Collingham, H., Kindleysides, M., Marston,B., Appleby, C. 2025. DementiaLab Conference 2025, Aviero, Portugal.