Sarah Christie is a London-based artist, writer and educator. Her embodied practice uses clay as a primary, and primal, material for sensing, thinking, moving and making with. She makes sculpture and drawings by directly making marks, gestures and imprints with hand and body movements. She invites correspondence and collaboration with other people, places, forms and materials, to create work that may be impermanent, interdisciplinary, slow-growing and cyclical. This ‘call-and-response’ approach aims to allow uncertainty and create space for unexpected outcomes to emerge.
Sarah has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions in the UK and internationally, including at London’s Southwark Cathedral, OVADA in Oxford, British Ceramics Biennial, and Industry City, Brooklyn, New York. Her writing has been published in the Journal of Australian Ceramics, online zine ‘What About Clay?’ and in fellow artists’ exhibition catalogues. She teaches at Central Saint Martins, UAL, and has been a visiting artist at Imperial College London. In addition to numerous live workshops in educational settings, she has explored teaching and collaborating in digital space in alternative educational models. In 2020 she co-created Small Acts of Being with artist Heather Barnett, and in 2022 and 2023 she led studio sessions with AB Projects (USA).
Selected Exhibitions:
My Body In My Hands, curated by Sam Lucas and Nick Grellier, SVA Gallery, Stroud, May 2023
Folly at The Store, Dulwich College. September 2022
Can we ever know the meaning of these objects? 8-22 July, 2021, Curated by Sarah Sparkes and Kevin Quigley, at Gallery 46, Whitechapel, London
Pilgrimage at Southwark Cathedral, Feb 2022
‘Sheltered’ at Southwark Cathedral, November 2019 - January 2020
No Format Gallery Painting Open, December 2019
‘Past and Present Tense’ WhiteNoise Projects, Crypt Gallery, September 2019
‘Library’ solo installation in Southwark Cathedral, March 2019
No Format Gallery, Painting Open, Deptford, December 2018
Solo exhibition, The Link, Southwark, Oct - Nov 2018
‘Library’ at OVADA Gallery, Oxford, October 2018
Tactile Minds, The House Mill, London, September 2018
Votive, Thames Festival, September 2018
Mess is the Law, Industry City, Brooklyn, New York, May 2018
Small is Beautiful More and Less, Curated by Jillian Knipe, Unit 3 projects, June 2017
Craftsmanship Alone is not Enough, Lethaby Gallery, London, Jan - Feb 2017
Brain Waves, Lethaby Gallery, London, Sept-Oct 2016
Mastery of Material, Pangolin Gallery, London, Aug-Sept 2016
UAL Showroom MEAD Scholars and Fellows Showcase, January 2016
British Ceramics Biennial, September 2015
Green Week, Central Saint Martins, February 2015
E&J's Pantry, Endell Street, London, July 2014
Interchange Junctions, Howick Place, London, May 2014
Writing:
Journal of Australian Ceramics, July 2024
‘Taking’, December 2023 published in What About Clay?
Collaborations, Projects, Residencies:
ACWU, Associated Clay Workers Union
Freelands Foundation SHIFT film, 2022, available here
Small Acts of Being, co-founder with Heather Barnett, 2020
WhiteNoise Projects, 2018
Artist in Residence, Craftspace, Birmingham, September 2017
Crafts Council - Selected artist 'Make Your Future' schools workshop programme, 2017
Teaching:
Central Saint Martins, Associate Lecturer, 2020 – present
Imperial College London, Visiting Artist and supervisor, Medical School, 2015 – present
Morley College, Professional Development, HND Ceramics, 2018
Community Focus, London, adults with learning disabilities, and care home residents, 2014
Selected Workshops and Events:
AB Projects Studio Session, ‘Materializing Resistance’ February 2023
A-B Projects, Studio Sessions: ‘Correspondence’ February 2022.
A-B projects, Los Angeles, September 2021: State of Ceramics series: ‘Ceramics in Relationship to Collaboration: material reciprocity as a generative practice’
Goldsmiths College, Centre for Arts and Learning, November 2020
Imperial Lates, Creativity and Care, September 2020
Make Do Play for King’s College Cultural Community, February 2020
King’s College London, King’s Cultural Award, January 2020
Drawing and clay workshops for King’s College Head’s Up exhibition, December 2019
Make Do Play for King’s College Cultural Community, October 2019
The Great Exhibition Road Festival drawing workshop weekend, June 2019
Dulwich Schools Olympiad ‘Make your Mark’, March 2019
Kings College London - Drawing workshop for Cultural King’s, January 2019
King's College London - Drawing workshop, Florence Nightingale Faculty, 2018
Craftspace 20th Anniversary residency, Centrala Gallery, Birmingham. June 2017
In:Site Festival of Graduate Creativity, Craftspace, Birmingham, Sept 2016
William Morris Gallery, London, Master Painter for Clare Twomey's Time Present, and Time Past, July-August 2016
V&A Late 'The Potteries', October 2015
'Clay Cargo', Clayground Collective, Kings Cross, London, August 2015
'Clay Cargo', Clayground Collective, Kings Cross, London, August to October 2014
'Thinking Hands?' Symposium, Central St Martins, September 2014
Selected Talks:
OVADA talks in conversation with Romina Provenzi, July 2020
British Association of Dermatologists, Education Conference, March 2020
London Craft Week Symposium ‘Clay, Culture and Society, in conversation with Clare Twomey, Phoebe Cummings and Roger Kneebone, May 2019
Dulwich Schools Olympiad, Creative Practice, March 2019
‘Creativity and Mental Health’ chair, panel discussion Tactile Minds, September 2018
OVADA Gallery, Oxford May 2018
See | Sense, London, April 2018
'Perception and the Art of Medicine', Imperial College Teachers Conference, May 2017
Creative Unions performance, Central Saint Martins, May 2017
'Aspire' lecture, Bishop Thomas Grant school, February 2017
'Forms of Protest', Brain Waves, London Design Festival, September 2016
Central Saint Martins Graduation Ceremony, Student Speech, June 2016
London Medical Schools Conference, Imperial College, May 2016
UAL Undergraduate Research Forum, Chelsea College of Art, March 2016
Publications / Press
‘Expanding from the Small Screen – Arts Practice for Affective Digital Presence’ Miranda Matthews, International Journal of Art & Design Education, May 2021, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jade.12359
‘Creating Empathic Doctors Through Art’, Christie, Smith, Kemp, Korean Journal of Medicine, September 2021, https://www.kjme.kr/m/journal/view.php?doi=10.3946/kjme.2021.203
Clay in Common by Julia Rowntree and Duncan Hooson
CSMPublic Issue 2, May 2018
Education:
BA Ceramics, Central St Martins, 2016, First Class Honours
MEAD Scholarship Award, 2015