A Ripple Through Time: Ceramics then and now

What happens when our hands meet clay? Do we simply shape materials – or do materials also shape the way we think, remember and experience the world?

An interdisciplinary conversation bringing together art, archaeology, science and Polish ceramic heritage, featuring:

Alicja Patanowska – artist and designer, Wrocław
Professor Lambros Malafouris – University of Oxford
Dr Joanna Bagniewska – University of Oxford, moderator
and a representative of Bolesławiec ceramics, the Polish town famed for its distinctive hand-stamped pottery

Taking Alicja Patanowska’s The Ripple Effect as a starting point, the conversation will explore making, materials, memory, ceramics and the relationship between people and objects.

Part of Hevelius Project 2026: Stars, Water & Earth, connecting Oxford and Wrocław – Oxford’s twin city in Poland.

Organised by Oxford Polish Association, in partnership with IF Oxford, Polish Cultural Institute in London, Bodleian Libraries and Bolesławiec ceramics, Poland.

Ticketing: TICKETS AVAILABLE SOON
Event format: TALK
Event duration: 2 hours
Age: Teenage, Adult
Event start: 2:00pm

Speakers and moderator

Alicja Patanowska

Sculptor, visual artist, designer and potter, Poznań, Poland

Alicja Patanowska’s art research at the Bodleian Library is funded by Zygmunt Zaleski Stichting in collaboration with On&On Designs.

Patanowska’s research-based practice explores embodied knowledge: how bodies, materials and physical experience participate in knowing. Working primarily with clay, she investigates touch, gesture, ecology, material transformation and care.

She studied at the Royal College of Art in London and holds a PhD in Fine Arts from the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław. Her installation The Ripple Effect, commissioned for the John Madejski Garden at the V&A and curated by Carrie Chan, was presented during London Design Festival 2025 as part of the UK/Poland Season 2025.

Supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Polish Cultural Institute in London and the Academy in Wrocław, it transformed material associated with mining waste into a work about water, matter, responsibility and our relationship with the Earth. Her projects also include We Are the Weather (2025); her works are held in museum collections in Poland, South Korea and China.

Professor Lambros Malafouris

Professor of Cognitive and Anthropological Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology; Tutorial Fellow, Hertford College, University of Oxford

His interdisciplinary research explores the relationship between mind, material culture and environment. Through Material Engagement Theory, he argues that cognition emerges through our reciprocal engagement with the material world rather than being confined to the brain.

His books include People Are STRANGE (MIT Press, 2026), How Things Shape the Mind (MIT Press, 2013) and An Anthropological Guide to the Art and Philosophy of Mirror Gazing (Bloomsbury, 2020, with Maria Danae Koukouti). He was Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded HANDMADE project.

Dr Joanna Bagniewska (Moderator)

Environmental scientist and science communicator, University of Oxford

Dr Bagniewska is an environmental scientist, lecturer and experienced science communicator. Her work spans ecology, biodiversity, teaching and public engagement. She will connect the artistic and scientific perspectives and guide an accessible conversation with the audience.

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