Pottery as Resistance: Making Art in a Fast, Disposable World
In a world obsessed with speed, growth, and disposability, what does it mean to spend three weeks making a single pot?
It means resistance.
Every time I roll out a slab of clay, smooth its surface, coax it into shape, and wait for it to dry — slowly, unevenly, according to its own rhythms — I am saying no to the culture of urgency. When I sand the bottom of a cup until it feels like silk, even though no one will see it, I am resisting the idea that hidden labour has no value. When I fire a glaze that drips and pools unpredictably, I am choosing mystery over mass production.
Pottery in 2025 is radical precisely because it is inefficient. It refuses to obey the systems of capitalism that demand infinite growth on a finite planet. Clay teaches us that everything has a cycle: wet to dry, soft to hard, fragile to enduring, fire to ash. There are no shortcuts. If you rush, the pot cracks. If you force, it resists.
That lesson is political.
We live in a world where objects are cheap, fast, and forgettable. IKEA plates break, and we shrug. Coffee comes in a takeaway cup, and we toss it. Our landfills overflow with things that were never meant to last. Pottery stands against this. It is heavy, earthy, deliberate. It insists on presence: you feel its weight in your hand, you notice the glaze under your lip. It asks you to slow down.
And slowing down, in 2025, is an act of defiance.
When you choose a handmade mug instead of a factory-stamped one, you’re not just buying an object. You’re voting for slowness, for care, for soul. You’re saying: I want to live in a world where things matter.
This is not nostalgia. It is survival. Because if we continue to live at the pace of extraction and excess, there will be no soil left to grow from, no rivers clean enough to drink, no space to breathe.
Clay reminds us that we belong to the earth, not the other way around. That our work, our economies, our choices must be cyclical, not endless.
So when I make pots, I don’t just make vessels. I make a quiet protest. A refusal to be efficient when efficiency costs us our humanity. A reminder that care is resistance, and soul is more powerful than system.
Until next time,
Nawsheen, your friendly homebody artist from Murrumbateman.
