The West Java West Yorkshire Cooperative Movement (a collaboration between Pavilion, Jatiwangi Art Factory and George Clark) have received a Crafting Futures grant to support a new artist-led ceramics project spanning the UK and Indonesia. Crafting Futures is a collaboration between the Crafts Council and the British Council which supports the future of craft around the world through research, collaboration and education.

Led by a UK ceramics artist, the project will engage young women in Jatiwangi and Leeds (aged 13–25) to think about how the making of ceramic objects could speak to, and produce, contemporary ideas of feminism.

The project forms part of our next season of work with Art School for Rebel Girls.

The manufacture of terracotta roof tiles has been central to the industry and identity of Jatiwangi since 1905, and until relatively recently they were used in the construction of homes across the whole of Indonesia.

JaF are working with the few existing roof tile factories left in the local area to diversify the types of objects which could be produced there and to ensure that terracotta remains a strong symbol of local life.

Alongside textiles, ceramics was also a major industry in Leeds during the 20th Century. With few exceptions, the city is constructed from locally manufactured red bricks and there is a tradition of using glazed bricks, tiles and faience in the facades and interiors of important buildings.

Since 2018, WJWYCM has enabled cultural projects and residencies in West Java by West Yorkshire-based artists Harry Meadley, Isabella Carreras and Kerstin Doble. It has also facilitated cultural projects and residencies in West Yorkshire with West Javan artists Ismal Muntaha, Ika Yuliana, Tedi Nurmanto and Ade Ahmad Sujai.