The White Road

Excellent talk at Charleston Farmhouse as part of their literature festival with Edmund de Waal talking about the research for his most recent Book “The White Road: a pilgrimage of sorts”.

The book was about his passion from porcelain and his journey to look at its origins. He talked about how he’d been thinking about why objects matter which lead him to scribble notes on a walk which turned into the journey and book. The whole talk was a series of wonderful stories which you wanted to know more about.

The talk was so good my notes were odd words and sentences badly written on my ticket so this blog post is a bit of a journey in itself to piece it together!

He talked passionately about being in China and realising he was looking at a landscape of porcelain but also talked about the conditions in the factories. Then there was a wonderful mad section on Augustus II and the alchemist Böttger working to produce porcelain in Europe. Then talk of good old Josiah Wedgewood in England and ending with the awful story of Allach porcelain which was owned by the SS in Germany and used forced labour from Dachau.

It was also a brilliant idea to invite architect Amanda Levete to chair the event as she is currently working on the new entrance to the V&A Museum which will use porcelain tiles and she talked about how she looked for a manufacturer who could provide the quality and quantity she needed.

 

 

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