<p>Opened in 1962 and closed just 16 years later, Plymouth Zoo served as a quarantine centre for animals arriving in the UK from overseas. Matthew used the story of an elephant temporarily held at the zoo as a starting point for pupils of PSCA to consider ideas of migration, transience, containment within a pre- and post-Brexit landscape and the experience of quarantine, creating their designs in response. The children also had the opportunity to print the tiles themselves using facilities in Plymouth College of Art’s ceramics workshop, assisted by graduates of the college, Laura Brooks and Benjamin Kew.</p> <p>50 designs that the students produced during this period have become motifs for a series of ceramic tiles that have been installed as public art near the zoo’s former home in Central Park, as well as featuring in Matthew’s <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/posts/tactile-change-a-solo-exhibition-by-matthew-raw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">recent solo exhibition</a> in The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art, ‘Tactile Change’.</p>

<p>‘Tactile Change’, which ran from September to November in The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art, was funded by <strong>Arts Council England</strong> and was commissioned by <strong>The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art</strong> and <strong>The Box Plymouth</strong> (the city’s major new cultural and heritage centre, set to open in 2020).</p> <p>‘Tactile Change’ also featured ceramic prints taken from carved wooden blocks and large-scale interactive doors, with the elephant tiles forming part of the installation ‘Routemaster’; an arrangement of large-scale doors and fences deployed around the Gallery that directed and restricted the movement of visitors through the space.</p> <p>Matthew said: “Working in Plymouth has been a delight, learning about the history of the city and the forces that have shaped it over the past century. I’m fascinated by the mixture of buildings new and old, and by people’s relationships to the notion of progress in the city; the things they hope will change and the things they want to stay the same. I’m impressed with the way things are done in Plymouth.”</p>

<p>Matthew’s involvement with PSCA stems from a mural project he is currently undertaking in collaboration with architects <strong>Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios</strong>.</p> <p>Matthew said: “I’m working with architects Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios on my largest commission to date, part of a large mural on their new Arts &amp; Humanities building at the University of Warwick. When I found out that they also worked with Plymouth College of Art on the design for Plymouth School of Creative Arts, a school with making at the epicentre of its curriculum, I knew that I wanted to work with children there for this project.”<br /></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/posts/tactile-change-a-solo-exhibition-by-matthew-raw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read more about Matthew Raw's 'Tactile Change' exhibition in The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art.</a></li><li><a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/ba-hons-craft-material-practices" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Are you interested in ceramics? BA (Hons) 3D Design Crafts might just be the course for you.</a></li><li><a href="https://plymouthschoolofcreativearts.co.uk/">Find out more about Plymouth School of Creative Arts</a>.</li></ul>