Greenfire

A story of fragmentation and transformation

Greenfire was created specially for the International Ceramics Festival in Aberystwyth in June 2005 and was the winning proposal for the Festival's Student Award. The Student Award enables a student or recent graduate to complete an interesting project or demonstrate an innovative technique at the Festival. It gives students an opportunity to work alongside respected international ceramists as an invited guest artist.

At the greenware stage of the ceramic process, a piece "...has lost all water through evaporation and has no flexibility. Bending it will break it. You cannot add anything to it. You cannot carve anything from it. You cannot do anything to it except break it! This is purely a passive state for the clay awaiting the first firing..." We were interested in the human analogues of this state, and created a performance piece in several stages, shown over a day, involving two performers, one puppet, five characters, songs, spectacle and storytelling. It is an example of the work Unpacked can do for a specific location and event.

Do you risk the fire or wait to shatter?

Performed by Darren East and Zoe Hunter
Directed by Jason Benson