Amelia Black collects shadows in clay. Working with Australian terracotta, she projects shadows from the surrounding landscape onto burnished surfaces, then etches away layers with water — inscribing echoes of light onto material shaped by deep geological time.
Her practice sits at the intersection of poetic making and rigorous inquiry. After more than a decade in design research and sustainability innovation, including work with IDEO and other mission-driven organisations, Black brings systems thinking and qualitative research methods to questions of material ethics in contemporary ceramics.
As part of Clay Matters, she co-leads the Material Provenance Project — collaborating with artists, community studios, and industry partners to map Australian clay sources and build greater transparency across the supply chain. She works with local clays and reclaimed waste materials, tracing where they come from and how they move through cultural, environmental, and industrial networks.
Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria and Princessehof Keramiekmuseum, Netherlands. She has written for the Journal of Australian Ceramics and Garland Magazine, teaches at Slow Clay Centre, and serves on the Board of Directors of The Australian Ceramics Association.
ameliablack@gmail.com
@ameliablackceramics
- Born 1983, Newport News, Virginia, USA
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Resides and works Naarm/Melbourne, Australia since 2020
2009 Fellowship, xDesign Environmental Health Clinic, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, New York
2001-06 Bachelors of Fine Arts in Architecture & Designed Objects, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2024 Material Provenance, Craft Victoria, Melbourne
2024 Facts of Matter, Linden New Art, Melbourne
2024 MPCAP Group Show, Cook Street Collective, Flinders, Victoria (Finalist)
2023 Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
2023 Bulk Buy, Testing Grounds Emporium, Melbourne
2022 A Reimagined Vessel-VAS, Front Room Gallery, Melbourne
2021 Who's Afraid of Public Space, ACCA, Melbourne
2013 Grand Hotel: Redesigning Modern Life, Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada
2012 Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City, Socrates Sculpture Park, New York
2011 Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City, Noguchi Museum, New York
2010 Design Smells: Olfactory Rhetoric in Design Experience, MFA Thesis Exhibition, SVA, New York
Princessehof Keramiekmuseum, Netherlands
2025-present Board of Directors, The Australian Ceramics Association
2024 "Wild Clay," Journal of Australian Ceramics, Vol 62, No 3
2024 "Expanding the table," Garland Magazine (1 September 2024)
2024 "Material Provenance," Journal of Australian Ceramics, Vol 62, No 2
2013 Contributor, Grand Hotel: Redesigning Modern Life, Hatje Cantz (Stuttgart)
2011 Contributor, Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City, The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum (New York)
2024 Panelist, Material Complexity Panel, Craft Victoria (Melbourne Design Week)
2024 Speaker, ReadyMade x Sarah Nedovic, Marion Wine Bar (Melbourne Design Week)
2024 “Episode #501 - A collective approach to sustainability with Clay Matters” Red Clay Rambler Podcast with Ben Carter.
2012 Presenter, Civic Action: Community Based Research, Noguchi Museum, Queens, New York
& Social Practice
2023 Bulk Buy Pop-up Shop – processing and selling second-life glaze materials
2015-20 Co-Founder, Studio Ana, not-for-profit community ceramics facility, Brooklyn, New York
2023-24 Ceramic Consultant, Sarah Nedovic Studio, Melbourne
2023 Ceramic Glaze Development, Twelve80, Melbourne
2021-23 R&D Lead, Anchor Ceramics, Melbourne
2017-20 Director of Packaging & Innovation, Blue Apron, New York
2015-17 Design Researcher, IDEO/Machine, New York