The museum commissioned the ceramic works for its exhibition Kerameikos, named after the ancient pottery district in Athens. The exhibition features seven Australian ceramic artists: Vipoo Srivilasa, Monica Radi Rudhar, Juz Kitson, Kirsten Coelho, Glenn Barkley, Idil Abdullahi and Janet Fieldhouse.

Led by exhibition curator and archaeologist Candace Richards, the artists spent a week at the museum in February, delving into its collections of antiquities, natural history, art, ethnography and science. The resulting works offer a new perspective on one of Australia’s oldest museum collections.

“We wanted to curate a new exhibition that showcases the dynamic work of ceramic artists in Australia today and reflects the fact that the Museum has over 12,000 ceramic objects in its collection, covering thousands of years of history and preserving memories and stories across time,” Ms Richards said.

“The invited artists went in very different directions when selecting and responding to objects from our collections. It was a very artistically-driven experience. They all think deeply about the material culture in our society and the representation of memory in their works.”

The Kerameikos district, located on the outskirts of the ancient city, was named after its ceramics workshops, giving its name to the English word “ceramics” (it later became a cemetery). With its numerous pottery workshops, a flourishing ceramics trade was possible here. The museum’s collection includes a dipylon krater (funerary vase) from Kerameikos, which dates back to 750 BC.