Clay in Performance 
Curated by Raheleh Filsoofi
NCECA 2026

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Clay in Performance, curated for NCECA 2026, was the inaugural program dedicated to performance within the conference, bringing together artists working at the intersection of clay, body, and time. Presented as part of the Volumes theme, the program unfolded over two consecutive days, positioning clay as an active, temporal medium that emerges through gesture, sound, risk, and presence.

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The selected artists included practitioners invited directly by the curator alongside those chosen through an open call, creating a program that bridged established voices and emerging practices. Across these live works, artists engaged clay not as a fixed form, but as a material in flux, capable of holding memory, tension, and transformation.

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The program challenged long-standing hierarchies within ceramics by foregrounding performance as a legitimate and necessary mode of making, where the body becomes both tool and site, and where process, encounter, and impermanence take precedence over permanence and finish. As an inaugural platform, Clay in Performance opened space for new dialogues between material history and contemporary urgency, asking how clay can act, respond, and bear witness in real time.

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Participating performers: Vianney López, Billy Mark, Monica Juarez, Leticia Lowry-Garcilazo, Em irvin, Tia Santana, Liz Vukelich, Quinn Alexandria Hunter, Alejandro t. acierto, Raheleh Filsoofi 

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