A new ceramic artwork, The Keeper of All The Secrets, created by international multimedia artist Jacqueline Bishop, will open on 23rd August at the V&A Wedgwood Collection, Barlaston.
The compelling art installation explores the ‘Market Woman’, a recognisable yet overlooked figure in Caribbean society since the time of slavery.
Culture& and V&A Wedgwood Collection are offering a series of vibrant free events, including talks, poetry, afternoon tea, clay workshops, and activities for young people exploring Staffordshire’s histories of slavery and abolition.
Launching on UNESCO’s International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, the new ceramic artwork by Jacqueline Bishop invites audiences and visitors to reflect on Staffordshire’s colonial connections.
The Keeper of All The Secrets
The market woman, traditionally known as a ‘huckster,’ was one of the most ubiquitous figures from plantation Jamaica. While ever-present, she has remained largely overlooked.
Jacqueline Bishop’s tea service, The Keeper of All The Secrets, is a meticulously crafted collection of bone china plates, tableware, and textiles that pay homage to the market woman. The forms—teapots, cups, saucers, cream pitchers, and sugar pots—are adorned with collaged images in overglaze print transfers, outlined by hand in gold and silver. Bishop’s work not only celebrates the market woman but also showcases the highest level of craftsmanship.
Bishop, in collaboration with Stoke-on-Trent-based ceramist Emma Price, has created a unique artwork featuring diverse influences. The artwork includes floral and abolitionist imagery collages alongside images of female labour sourced from Jamaican postcards, paintings of enslaved women from Brazil, the colonial paintings of Italian Agostino Brunias, and contemporary photos.
Jacqueline Bishop, artist, writer and academic, said: “I’m delighted to be collaborating with Culture& and the V&A Wedgwood on this new work which focuses on making visible the invisible, in making tangible the ephemeral, in speaking aloud the unspoken, and in voicing voicelessness.”
The Keeper of All The Secrets is displayed in the V&A Wedgwood Collection Welcome Space as part of the Time, Space and Empire public programme, in partnership with Culture&.
The artwork will be featured until 3rd November 2024.
Full details of the programme of events in Stoke-on-Trent can be found here: www.cultureand.org
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