Illuminating past, present and future clay practices.

11, 12, 13 December 2026

IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay Register Now!

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Keynote Addresses

Day 1
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Keynote Address

My Life and Art: A Journey Exploring South Asia & GCHS(Global Ceramic Heritage on Stamps)

Guangzhen “Po” Zhou

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Guangzhen Zhou was born in Shanghai China, he is a ceramic artist, independent researcher, and Goodwill Ambassador for IAC, and he was former council member of IAC, representative for China. He earned master's degrees from the University of Minnesota-Duluth and San Jose State University. He has taught, lectured, and participated in exchange events worldwide, and traveled to over 120 countries or regions for the book project, “Overview of World Ceramic Cultural Heritage” (Chinese edition published in 2023). Having witnessed the living history of traditional ceramics, indigenous pottery, and archaeological fragments. In November 2025, his contribution documentary collection of Global Ceramic Heritage Stamps (GCHS) became a proposal submitted to UNESCO Memory of the World committee for evaluation.

Day 2
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Keynote Address

“The Present”: Inheritance, Disruption and Anticipation in Contemporary Ceramics

Ronnie Watt

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Dr Ronnie Watt is a South African ceramics art historian based in Canada. As researcher, collector, and author his work focuses on the contextual history and historiography of South African ceramics. His research examines how ceramic objects generate historical knowledge through their material, visual, social, and cultural relationships, with particular emphasis on contextual histories and object narratives. He holds a PhD in Art History from the University of South Africa and is currently undertaking further doctoral research in Visual Studies at the University of Pretoria, where he is also a Research Associate. His publications have contributed to expanding the study of South African ceramics beyond artist-centred narratives to broader questions of material culture, visual studies, collecting, identity, and historical interpretation.

Day 3
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Keynote Address

Ceramics: a material for resistance

Naman Ahuja

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Naman Parmeshwar Ahuja (born 1974) is an art historian and curator based in New Delhi. He is Professor of Indian Art and Architecture at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi where his research and graduate teaching focus on Indian iconography and sculpture, temple architecture and Sultanate-period painting. He is also the Editor of Marg, India’s leading quarterly magazine and journal on the arts, published from Mumbai. His studies on privately owned objects—terracottas, ivories and small finds—have drawn attention to a wide range of ritual cultures and transcultural exchanges at an everyday, quotidian level. He has curated several exhibitions, most notably The Body in Indian Art and Thought, and published books, including The Making of the Modern Indian Artist Craftsman: Devi Prasad.

Invited Talks

11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

Ōlakh: Craft as auto-ethnography: Identity and Narratives with Women Terracotta Artisans in Kutch

Dipra Arora

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Dipra Arora is a design researcher based in India. Her practice lies at the intersection of community, systems/social design, and co-creation. She finds joy in creating meaningful work that connects with people and their lived experiences. Her work integrates multimedia approaches to storytelling and her passion lies in exploring how design can foster participatory, inclusive, and sustainable futures. She studied Ceramic and Glass Design at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and currently works at the Industrial Design Centre, at IIT Bombay.

11:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Material Agency and the Language of Thoughts: Negotiating memory ,process and nature through contemporary ceramic practice

Pallavi Singh

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I am Pallavi Singh, a ceramic practitioner and researcher from Kanpur(U.P). I have completed my Bachelor's and Masters in Ceramic Sculpture from the Faculty of Visual Arts, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. My art practice explores the relationship between memory, material and human consciousness through ceramic sculpture and installation. Working primarily with hand-built forms, alternative firing techniques such as Raku and Obvara and experimental processes including cyanotype printing on ceramics, I investigate the material agency of clay and its ability to preserve traces of thought and nature. Inspired by the cultural landscape of Kashi, my ongoing research project, Parajumble of Thoughts, reflects on the intersection of material, process, ecology and contemporary ceramic practice.

12:00 PM - 12:30 PM

Designing with Clay: Feminist and Decolonial Readings of Indian and Kurdish Terracotta Water Pots

Dr. Arman Ovla

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Dr. Arman Ovla is a faculty member at the IDC School of Design, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay). His research explores visual culture, material culture, decolonial design, and visual ethnography, with a particular focus on indigenous pottery traditions, terracotta practices, and craft heritage. His work examines the intersections of design, gender, ritual, and cultural rights through comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives. Originally from East Kurdistan (Iran), he has conducted research on traditional craft practices across South Asia and West Asia. He was previously associated with the School of Design, Art & Performance at FLAME University, Pune.

12:30 PM - 1:00 PM

Contemporary Mythogenesis in Ceramics: The Reanimation of the Sacred in a Time of Failed Gods

p e l o l o c a

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Born in Ireland, raised in India, and based in Brooklyn, Peloloca is a
South Indian artist whose work is shaped by transcontinental movement
and interdisciplinary training. After two decades in design, new media,
and independent film, they returned to a studio practice rooted in clay.
Using hybrid wheel-thrown and hand-built processes, Peloloca creates
abstract-figurative ceramic sculptures that function as
counter-iconography: a subversion of power through the language of
idolatry, mythology, and deification. Their work connects anti-imperial
histories and queer-feminist mythologies across the Global South and its
diasporas. Most recently, they participated in the Drop Everything
Biennale in Ireland and were an artist-in-residence and Angus Graham
Fellowship recipient at the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in
Maine, USA. They hold an MFA from Parsons School of Design (New
York) and a BFA from Stella Maris College (Chennai).

11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

Domestic Archives: Uncovering the Practice Margaret Hine

Dr Natasha Mayo

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Dr Natasha Mayo is an artist, researcher and senior lecturer ceramics at Cardiff School of Art and Design. Her practice is fueled by an interest in approaches that move between social, technical as well as creative ways of working, leading her to compile a contemporary occupational folklore surrounding the discipline of ceramics. She is an HEA fellow, member of the Royal Anthropology Institute, the Folklore Society and trained in oral history techniques.

In practice, she retraces her own family folklore through indexical and intended imagery that weaves across generations, viewing creativity as a social tool able to strengthen relationships and sense of belonging.

11:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Potters in the Anthropocene

Yann-Pierre Montelle

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Yann-Pierre Montelle is an anthropologist, lecturer, and potter from New Zealand whose most recent work sits at the intersection of deep human history and the existential challenges of the Anthropocene. His scholarship is animated by a conviction that the most reliable answers to the crises ahead of us may already exist - not in the laboratories of the future, but in the workshops of the past. Over the past five years, Yann-Pierre has travelled extensively across the Indian subcontinent, meeting and interviewing traditional potters in an effort to understand an ancestral craft that he believes offers valuable insights into the forms of sustainability demanded by today's climatic, economic, and social transformations. Through these encounters, he seeks to uncover not only the technical knowledge embedded in centuries-old pottery traditions, but also the ways of living and making that may help shape a more resilient future.

12:00 PM - 12:30 PM

From Kummari (Kumbhar) to Ceramic Artist: Language, Value, and Hierarchies in Contemporary Indian Ceramics

Balakrishna Vallepu

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Balakrishna Vallepu is the ceramic artist behind Yogam Pottery. His practice explores memory, language, identity, and cultural inheritance through clay. Drawing from his experiences of living in India and Germany, he is interested in how language, objects, and traditions are shaped by place, culture, and time. Alongside his studio practice, he has been teaching pottery for several years through courses and workshops that encourage curiosity, experimentation, and a deeper connection with clay.

12:30 PM - 1:00 PM

Clay for Everyone: Expanding Participation Through Inclusive Design

Sadhvi Thukral

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Sadhvi Thukral is a ceramic artist, designer, educator, and founder of Off Centre by Sadhvi, a contemporary ceramic studio creating handcrafted functional ware, jewellery, home décor, and lifestyle objects. A postgraduate in Ceramic & Glass Design from the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, her practice combines design thinking with inclusive and socially engaged design. She developed Kahani Her Mahine Ki, a menstrual kit for women with visual impairments, and has explored clay as a therapeutic medium with the Blind People's Association. Through her studio, she trains individuals, including differently abled individuals from diverse educational and professional backgrounds, fostering craftsmanship, creativity, and inclusion.

11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

Sacred Earth, Sacred Knowledge: Reclaiming African Clay Practices as Medicine, Memory, and Science

Mzwanele Tshishonga

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Mzwanele Tshishonga is a South African ceramist, researcher, and educator from Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. His practice explores African sculptural traditions through clay, examining its roles in healing, spirituality, memory, and indigenous knowledge systems. He recently completed an MFA at the University of the Witwatersrand, where his research investigated ancestral dreamscapes as sites of knowledge production. A Canon Collins Scholar, Tierney Fellow, and alumnus of the Market Photo Workshop, Tshishonga works across sculpture, photography, and writing to recentre African epistemologies and foster dialogue on heritage, material culture, and contemporary ceramic practice.

11:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Ceramics as a Living Archive: Oral Histories, Diasporic Memory, and Indo-Caribbean Lives

Heidi McKenzie

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Heidi McKenzie is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary ceramic installation artist of Indo-Caribbean and Irish heritage. Her research-driven practice explores migration, memory, archives, colonial histories, and inherited identity through ceramics, photography, sound, video, and digital media. Drawing on oral histories and family archives, she creates material encounters with histories often fragmented or absent from institutional records. McKenzie has exhibited internationally, including at the Indian Ceramics Triennale in New Delhi and in China, Canada, Europe, and the United States. Her work is held by the Royal Ontario Museum and Gardiner Museum. She was elected to membership in the International Academy of Ceramics in 2022.

12:00 PM - 12:30 PM

Reconfiguring Ceramics as a Medium of Social Practice, Care, and Collective Imagination

Ritika Anand

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Ritika Anand is a contemporary ceramic artist whose practice investigates the
interconnected systems of nature through organic forms, fractal patterns, and material
transformation. Inspired by the relationships between life, landscape, and growth, she
creates abstract sculptures and installations that evoke familiarity while inviting
multiple interpretations. Working primarily with clay, complemented by glass, wire, and
brass, her works explore texture, light, and the evolving dialogue between materials.
Through her practice, she encourages viewers to reconnect with the natural world and
reflect on themes of belonging, transformation, and renewal. Ritika holds an M.F.A.
from Visva-Bharati University, Shantiniketan, and a B.F.A. from Kalakshetra
Foundation, Chennai. She is the recipient of the Hyundai Art for Hope Grant (2025–26),
the Ministry of Culture’s Young Artist Scholarship, and several national awards in
ceramics and fine arts. Her works have been exhibited extensively across India and
internationally in Romania, Indonesia, and China, including her solo exhibition The
Poetry of Bloom at Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi, in 2025.

12:30 PM - 1:00 PM

Project restart: A ceramics-based restorative justice initiative for incarcerated individuals in India

Shreya Kumari Kedia

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Shreya Kumari Kedia is a recent graduate and designer trained in ceramics and glass design from NID Ahmedabad, whose practice explores the intersections of craft, material culture, and social impact. Her personal creations are rooted in exploration and whimsy, often expressed through ceramic and glass-based practices that engage with contemporary interpretations of traditional making processes. Through research-led projects, she engages with artisans and communities to explore how design can preserve cultural knowledge while creating meaningful opportunities for livelihood and expression. Her project Mitti Sung documents a ceramic training initiative within prisons, examining clay as a medium for learning, dignity, and transformation. She is interested in building design practices rooted in empathy, material experimentation, and long-term social engagement.

Panel Discussions

Day 1 2:45 PM - 3:45 PM
Panel Discussion

Cera-Mix Media: Ceramics and Present Day Challenges

Moderator

Shampa Shah

Panelists

Srinia Chowdhury

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Srinia Chowdhury is a New Delhi–based artist whose practice explores the tension between personal
and socially constructed identities. Working primarily in ceramics, she creates narrative-driven
sculptures that blend humour, satire, and phantasmagoria. Her work has been exhibited at Art of
India by The Times of India (2026) and India Design Fair (2024, 2025), and is part of the collection of
the Rothko Museum, Latvia. A recipient of the Jyotsna Bhatt Ceramics Award (2022), she is a
member of the International Academy of Ceramics (2025) and is currently part of Anant Art Gallery’s
STUDIO CATALYST program.

Kavita Nair

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Kavita is a self-taught ceramic artist based in Goa, with sustained mentorship under Neha Kudchadkar, Amrita Dhawan, and Apurva Kulkarni. After leaving a demanding corporate career for a quieter life closer to nature, she found in clay a freedom that let her curious, unstructured self surface. She works intuitively, moulding with abandon; her work reflects an optimism shaped by her closeness with her young daughter and the Goa landscape around their home. Her current practice centers on organic sculptural forms that double as light sources - vessels made luminous through complex, layered glazing, glowing with warmth and feeling.

Parth Palsay

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Parth Palsay (b. 1996, Pune, India) is a ceramic artist and studio potter whose
practice draws from contemporary urban landscapes, domestic objects, and
architectural fragments to examine ideas of inhabitation, memory, and
identity. He studied Contemporary Art Practices at the Srishti Institute of Art,
Design and Technology. His work has been presented in group exhibitions in
Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Puducherry. In 2025, he was awarded the
Prafulla Dahanukar Art Foundation's Kalanand Grant for ceramics. Alongside
his studio practice, his current research examines the relationship between
ceramics, photography, and digital culture, investigating how contemporary
ceramic objects are encountered, circulated, and understood today.

Yamini Dhall

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Yamini Dhall is a ceramic artist whose practice extends beyond function to explore fragility, vulnerability, and the evolving sense of self. Based between Mumbai and Ludhiana, she balances her studio practice with teaching, viewing both as deeply interconnected modes of engagement. Influenced by Japanese aesthetics, her process-led approach is guided by an innate curiosity, diverse clay bodies, varied firing techniques, and an intuitive dialogue with material. She completed a residency at the IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay, earlier this year, and recently co-curated and exhibited in 'Mrida', a landmark exhibition featuring five women ceramic artists in Mumbai 

Day 2 2:45 PM - 3:45 PM
Panel Discussion

Building Bridges: Ceramics Industry and Indian Studio Pottery

Moderator

Sandeep Manchekar

Panelists

Siraj Saxena

Rakesh Lakhani

Ganesh Manickavasagam

Vinay Daga

Sarthak Chhatwal

Day 3 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Panel Discussion

Approaches to Ceramics Education

Moderator

Raja Mohanty

Panelists

Greg Daly

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Greg Daly is internationally known and respected as a ceramic artist specialising in rich glaze effects, and also as the author of Glazes and Glazing Techniques (1995 Simon & Schuster). His work is represented in 24 international book publications, in 80 national and international art galleries and museums (including the National Gallery of Australia and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London), and he has won 36 national and international awards.He has held over 70 solo exhibitions and was President of Craft Australia from 1992-1995. He has exhibited in over 200 international and national group exhibitions. In 1999 he received an ARC grant to research the effect of firing cycles in the development of copper red glazes.

Caroline Cheng

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Caroline Cheng is the cofounder of award-winning Yi Design and is determined to find a

Circular solution for ceramic waste.

She is an artist and curator, whose promotion of Chinese ceramic arts over decades has

earned renown in China and throughout the world. She has held solo exhibitions in

Sotheby’s Hong Kong (2013) and New York (2015). Her work has been collected by the

British Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the San Francisco Asian Art

Museum, and the Boston Museum of Fine Art. Cheng has received prizes for her work in

the Westerwald Ceramics Museum, Germany (2010), the Clay and Glass Film Festival in

Montpellier France (2010), the Mino International Ceramic Award 2017, and also

received the “Outstanding Achievement Award” from the American National Council on

Education for the CeramicArts (NCECA) in 2014 and the Japan Good Design Award for

Community Development in 2020.

Caroline Cheng is also the owner of the world-renowned Pottery Workshop in Hong

Kong, Shanghai, and Jingdezhen.

Neelima Hasija

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Neelima Hasija is a Principal Designer/Principal Faculty with Ceramic and Glass Discipline(Industrial Design) at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. At present she is Head, International & Collaborative Programmes, at NID.

Neelima has served at NID in various profiles, those include, Coordinator/Discipline lead, Ceramic and Glass, Activity Chairperson/Head of various departments, member Senate/Policy and Planning Committee and various other academic and administrative committees.

Her varied interests across academic and professional practice include, Ceramic and Glass, Traditional Crafts and Culture, Design for Development, Material Culture, Form Studies and Systems Thinking and its application in Design.

Antra Sinha

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Antra Sinha began discovering the artist within her in 1994, when she joined a painting class in New Delhi. Following this passion, she earned her BFA and MFA degrees in painting from the MS University of Baroda in India in 2002. She then became an apprentice to Ray Meeker for ten years at Golden Bridge Pottery (GBP) in Pondicherry, India. During this time she taught regularly and facilitated workshops by Jeff Shapiro, Jack Troy and Tim Rowan. She participated in wood kiln firings of monumental sculptures and production ware. She has worked with multiple types of kilns, including Downdraft, Noborigama, and Anagama. Her knowledge and experience with kilns deepened when she began to design and build kilns in and around Pondicherry.

​

An award from The Japan Foundation took her to the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Japan for six months in 2008. She trained in the Urasenke Tea ceremony tradition from a Danish Tea Master in Kyoto. At the ceramic institute, she participated in Anagama, Kanayama, Itekoigama firings. Antra also completed a large-scale version of her signature sculpture, Tetrarc, which now resides in the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park Collection. This led to a commission for an even larger, five-foot Tetrarc from the Hyatt Regency in Chennai, India, in 2009.

Exhibition

Pathbreakers

An exhibition on pioneer potters of Bombay.

Curated by Kristine Michael

ICAF Members Show

This exhibition of works by ICAF members has two major themes:

  • Accidental Durations (Sculptural)
    Curated by Aditya Sharma
  • Clay At The Table (Functional)
    Curated by Khsitija Mitter
Read more

Ceramics Education in India: Past, Present and Future

This exhibition has works by students from contemporary art and design institutions in India. It offers a view of the past and present approaches to ceramics education in India and poses a question about desired directions in ceramics education for the future.

Curated by Raja Mohanty

Ceramics Tools, Materials and Equipment

An exhibition of tools, ceramic materials, equipment and accessories used by potters.

...And More

Demonstrations

Day 1 · 11 Dec 2026 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM

G. Saktivel shall be demonstrating techniques used by traditional potters from Pudukottai for creating terracotta animals and figures.

Day 2 · 12 Dec 2026 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM

Dinesh shall be demonstrating techniques used by traditional potters from Mollela.

Book Launch

Day 2 · 12 Dec 2026 4:30 PM
  • “Cone 9: Alchemy of Glazes” by Rachna Parasher
  • “Mrin Issue 8” by ICAF

Film Screenings

Day 1 · 11 Dec 2026 2:00 PM – 2:45 PM

Durga Puja of Kolkata

27 min · Directed by Debasree Datta

A mesmerizing tribute to Kolkata’s Durga Puja, this film is beautifully shot, as it moves from the quiet intensity of Kumartuli’s idol-makers to the pulsating streets and pandals captures both the intimacy and the grandeur of the festival. The film traces the festival’s evolution of a sacred ritual into a spectacular public art experience where creativity and community take centre stage.

Day 3 · 13 Dec 2026 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM

The World is my Home

55 min · Directed by Nirmal Chander

Produced by Bindu and Sunand Prasad
In association with Uphill Films

The film is a portrait of the life of Devi Prasad, a visionary peace activist who channeled his beliefs through art, education and the quiet rhythm of pottery. From shaping clay to shaping minds, his journey wove creativity with a deep commitment to non-violence. Across classrooms, communities and continents, he nurtured dialogue, resilience and human connection.

Workshops

Seats 10 participants
Additional fee Rs. 500/- Paid during the conference

Copper Red Workshop

This workshop is intended for participants who wish to get an exposure to copper red glazes. It is open to 10 participants who have registered for the Rupantar conference for an additional charge of Rs. 500/- to be paid during the conference.

To sign up: please email indianceramics.art@gmail.com with “Copper Red Workshop” in the subject line.

If there are more than 10 entries we would be drawing lots and shall inform you about the final list so that those selected can bring a bisqued piece (Max size 6in x 6in x 6in). Glaze application is on Day 1 of the conference; firing on Day 2. Participants can understand the firing cycle and witness the reduction phase. Glazed works would be returned at the end of Day 3.

Seats 15 participants
Additional fee Rs. 1000/- Paid during the conference

Wood Firing Workshop

This workshop is intended for participants who wish to get an exposure to wood firing. It is open to 15 participants who have registered for the Rupantar conference for an additional charge of Rs. 1000/- to be paid during the conference.

To sign up: please email indianceramics.art@gmail.com with “Wood Firing Workshop” in the subject line.

If there are more than 15 entries we would be drawing lots and shall inform you about the final list so that those selected can bring a bisqued piece (Max size 9in x 9in x 9in). Glaze application and firing is on Day 1 of the conference. Participants can participate in the firing process in the evening of Day 1. Glazed works would be returned at the end of Day 3.

Informal Meets

A meaningful and enjoyable outcome of conferences are the informal exchanges that happen on the edges of the formal events. We would be glad to facilitate such exchanges after an entire day of attending talks and discussions by guiding you to spaces on and off campus for continuing to share your journeys.

Conference Cocktails

We end the conference on a spirited note, at some venue near the IIT Bombay campus. Details on this would be shared soon.

Registration

Registration for RŪPĀNTAR is now open with an early-bird pricing

Registration Fee

Rs. 16,000

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Daily Pass

Placeholder TBD 5 December

Subject to seat availability

Payment Information

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  • Bank: HDFC Bank
  • Acc Name: Mrin Foundation
  • Acc No: 50200058147341
  • IFSC Code: HDFC0003779

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Seats left

42

Frequently Asked Questions

Where could I stay if I am planning to attend the conference?

There are several places near the IIT Bombay campus where you could stay. Please see the link below for details:

View stay options

Is it possible for me to get accommodation on the IIT Bombay campus?

December is the time for several conferences at IIT Bombay and the guest houses are unavailable. Accommodation for students (both boys and girls) is possible in student hostels (these have shared bathrooms).

For details please write to Dipra at 30007421@iitb.ac.in before 30th November 2026.

Would I need a pass to enter the IIT Bombay campus?

Yes. Increased security regulations require that visitors have a gatepass for entering the campus. This would be shared with you prior to the conference.

How far is the venue from the Main Gate of IIT Bombay?

The venue, IDC School of Design, is more than a kilometer from the entry gates. Unless you enjoy walking, you are advised to take the taxi / auto, till the venue location.

Should I be carrying my lunch?

Unless you have special dietary restrictions, you need not carry lunch. The conference registration includes lunch, tea and refreshments on all three days of the conference.

Event Location