From artisan makers to some of the UK’s leading manufacturers, artists enter into dialogue with spaces of making and create new work with and alongside skilled workforces.
This year will see the launch of Season 8, featuring newly commissioned artists as well as the second year of Matter at hand’s residency with Darwen Terracotta, a leading manufacturer of architectural terracotta and faience.
The full lineup of Season 8 artists will be announced soon.
Matter at hand is the design practice of Lewis Jones, a designer working across architecture, material science and hands-on construction. During his multi-year residency, Lewis has been exploring how Darwen Terracotta’s specialist knowledge of liquid clay and the grandeur of their architectural ceramics could inspire new directions for the development of unfired earthen building materials, using a process where earth is cast in a liquid form. Unfired clay, in combination with other minerals and natural fibres, has been used in construction throughout the world for thousands of years. It is a tradition that has largely been lost in this country.
For the 2025 Festival, the North Transept of Blackburn Cathedral was filled with a field of architectural, material experiments in Poured Earth. Framed by a decorative archway of used plaster moulds, a display of tests, prototypes and fragments of future buildings showed ways of using earth in construction that serve as structure or insulation whilst embracing colour, texture and surface decoration.
Matter at hand’s residency with Darwen Terracotta continues, building on Poured Earth, and will be presented at the National Festival of Making 2026 alongside a new series of commissioned artists.