…the graduates of our outgoing (and final) two-year MA programme…have been through it all in their education…they have surfed the tail of covid…learnt online…and in person…and found a world in dynamic transition and transformation…this showcase of art works stand as material witness to their ambition…and their drive to make…and by extension…to re-energise that essential set of relations between maker…material…and…process…this is the identity of the C&G student…making is thinking…and…thinking is making…identity is a re-occurring theme in these graduating works…personal identities…collective identities…historic…cultural…and…diasporic identities…material identities…post material turn…we have seen a major shift in the public understandings of embodied and tactic material practices…and…this showcase stands as a testament to the clarity and communication materials have when treated with thought…care…tactility…and empathy…like the materials they make with…our graduates evidence a remarkable ability to continuously shape shift…redrawing parameters and expectations for material-led study…as i sit at my desk writing this…i am drawn to the cover of the ‘ceramics reader’…where a cover image documents artist alexandra engelfriet crawling over heaped mounds of clay…re-shaping the ground below her with thrusting knees…and leaning arms…spread weightbearing fingers…the graduates {and engelfriet}… both literally…and….metaphorically achieve the same…they turn the ground inside out…re-making it to their own needs…re-searching it for new potentialities…re-imagining through acts of storying… forming the formless complexity of things into articulate meaningful dialogues with…and of…the world….