Ferrin Contemporary is returning to ICAF for the third year. We applaud the Gardiner for building this international program that takes over the museum with a fair, exhibition and symposium over 10 days in June. This year we are presenting recent works that address the theme FUTURE BODIES by three artists.

The International Ceramic Art Fair (ICAF) is a 10-day celebration of some of the most compelling recent ceramic art, featuring works by emerging and established artists from a wide range of backgrounds, as well as online and in-person programming by artists and curators.

Alongside the artworks presented in the fair, ICAF 2023 will include a symposium on June 9 and 10. Titled Toward Future Bodies, the symposium brings together artists, scholars, and other voices from Canada and internationally to explore the boundaries of our species and our connection to other life forms as expressed through ceramics and clay.

Many artists are reconsidering how we define ourselves as a species and how these changing definitions can alter our relationships to each other, to other animals and life forms, and to the land we inhabit. The separation of the human and non-human is increasingly understood as porous or insignificant. Clay can be seen as a mediator between the human and non-human, blurring the boundaries with its life-giving properties, its capacity to record and hold human memory, its characteristic of absorption, and its capacity to connect us to the land.

How can we re-orient our relationship to the planet through a more nuanced understanding of our connection to other forms of life? How can emerging discourses of the human shift us toward new and generative understandings of our bodies place in the world?

Join us to view the works at ICAF and participate in the accompanying programs to explore these and other questions. Sponsored by the Raphael Yu Centre for Candaian Ceramics, Toward Future Bodies aims to foster a deeper appreciation for Canadian ceramics within a larger artistic ecosystem.