Migration Memories
Join artist Simge Vurtak for a ceramic workshop exploring belonging and migration. During the workshop, you’ll explore one powerful question: What does it mean to leave one place and begin again in another?
Using simple techniques, you’ll create small symbolic sculptures with air-drying clay, inspired by personal feelings or family stories. No ceramics experience needed —just bring your curiosity and something meaningful to share. You will be able to take home your sculpture to air-dry, and paint at home if you’d like.
The bookable workshop lasts two hours and is open to anyone aged 18+ who feels they would benefit from the opportunity to reflect and connect through shared experiences of migration and identity.
The artist will provide a welcoming and relaxed environment to create and explore.
This workshop is part of a personal and ongoing project by Turkish-born artist Simge, founder of Object Petit a. After moving to Manchester in 2017, she began using clay to process her own migration experience, starting over in a new city, full of uncertainty. That journey inspired her to create “Migration Memories” workshops as a space for others to reflect on their own stories of movement, change and belonging.
Key Details:
About Object Petit a Ceramics
Simge Vurtak is a Manchester-based ceramics artist whose work explores all things humane.
Blending raw textures with dark humour, she creates figurative clay sculptures that reflect on vulnerability, power, belonging, and the quiet awkwardness of being human.
Her practice often begins with a question or an unsettling feeling, using clay as a way to process complex emotions. Each piece is an invitation to reflection.
Simge’s work is deeply shaped by her lived experience as a migrant. She is interested in how transitions leave traces on the body and memory. Her ongoing project, “Migration Memories” grew from this interest, offering others a space to express their own stories of movement and change through clay.
At the heart of her practice is a desire to listen, connect, and create space for others to be seen.
