Current Display
The Rots
by Anouska Samms
07th February to 31st March 2026
Negotiating the languages of ceramics and textiles, The Rots is a display by artist Anouska Samms. Showcasing her signature “Rot” sculptures, distinct modes of making are combined to provoke conversations around mimicry, hapticity as sensorial communication, and deconstructions of flesh. Impressions of her fingers imprint the surface through movements of punching, pinching, scratching and ripping apart. Part hard, part soft sculpture, the sides of each Rot are ‘fractured’ with gaping holes, filled delicately with Samms’ weaving of reclaimed silks from industrial mills, leather and hair. Samms’ handbuilt works are informed by the mechanisms and aesthetics of traditional crafts, yet through her embrace of gesture, new hybrid structures are proposed.
Samms visually communicates mimicry and mimesis, revealing the interconnectedness of imitation with the repetitive patterns and processes of weaving and ceramic coiling. She explores the inherent properties of the materials themselves. Not only do materials migrate and crosspollinate between works, with the ‘leftovers’ of one piece finding its way into another, but this exploration extends itself to an imitation of both surface and process - she creates her own ‘material mimicry.’ Sometimes one material will become a mirror of a different type of material altogether, where textures such as wood or bark are reproduced using Samms’ own alternative blend of ‘glazes’ to colour the work, such as oil pastel, paint and sand. There is a transparency to this process of disguise, as these materials allow the viewer to see both - what they are, and what they appear to be.
Here Samms’ ‘material mimicry’ serves as a metaphor for yielding to one’s environment, whether that be the external, the domestic, or the internal psyche. Mimicry is not exclusively practiced by animals. From social behaviour to fashion and material culture, humans too imitate resemblances for survival. Through Samms’ use of assemblage and her consistent motifs of hues and textures, she explores the ways emotional experiences can be disguised in culture through surface and aesthetic representation. From the continual deconstruction of her handwoven silk and hair textiles, to her fractured ceramic shards, Samms visually explores the gooey rupturing underneath a protective layer.
Anouska Samms lives and works in London.
Samms was an artist in residence from 2022-23 at the Alexander McQueen foundation - Sarabande, London, and was a Research Fellow in the Design, Architecture and Digital department at the V&A, London from 2017-21. She is currently a participant in Syllabus, a codesigned learning programme delivered in collaboration with Wysing Arts Centre, Studio Voltaire, Spike Island, Eastside Projects, Site Gallery, PS2 and New Art Exchange.
Her work has been the subject of numerous group and solo shows including Dry Cleaning, Max Radford Gallery, London (2025, group), Greatorex Street, London (2025, solo) curated by Art and Design journalist Francesca Perry, Listen Gallery, Glasgow (2024, group); Batsford Gallery, London, (2024, group); Sarabande Foundation, London (2023, group); SET Lewisham, curated by V&A curator Natalie Kane, (2022, solo); London Design Festival, London (2022, group).
Instagram: @anouskasamms
Photo credit: Gareth Williams @gareth.studio
Previous Displays
The Liberty Vessel no.162
by Julia Ellen Lancaster
3rd November 2025 to 31st January 2026
This ceramic sculpture, standing over two metres in height, draws inspiration from the long history of trade along the Thames, particularly during the 19th century, when the river near London Bridge was one of the busiest commercial hubs in the world. The site also once housed the infamous Clink Prison, established in the 12th century and notorious for its overcrowded and squalid conditions. The area, known as the Liberty of the Clink, was then under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester, who created his wealth from taxes incurred on all the trades.
The Liberty Vessel, referencing both ship and container with the notion of freedom as a traded or carried commodity, is composed of stacked, distinct sections, each defined by its own texture, material, and glaze. This layered construction reflects the vast array of goods; tea, spices, coal, sugar, ivory and raw materials for pottery and brickmaking, that arrived by ship from Britain’s colonies and trading partners.
The glazed surfaces evoke the polluted, oily, and ever-shifting waters of the 19th-century Thames, a river that served as both lifeline and hazard. The cracked textures suggest the industrial grime and strained infrastructure of that era, reflecting the paradox of a city enriched by trade even as its prosperity came at the cost of environmental degradation.
Embedded within the work are fragments of coloured glass collected from the Thames riverbanks at low tide. Green glass, once the most common due to natural impurities in sand, was later joined by a wider palette of Victorian-era hues, including yellow-green uranium glass, pink, blue, and amber. These shards, remnants of bottles discarded or lost to the river, act as archaeological traces of the Thames’s commercial past. Their inclusion underscores the river’s dual role, as a conduit of commerce and a repository of material memory, carrying the physical remnants of London’s industrial and imperial history into the present. The Liberty Vessel, responds to the continuous stream of movement, colour, noise and cultural activity of the area that continues today.
The display is free to view from Clink Street, and is open 24 hours a day.
Instagram: @juliaellenlancaster_ceramics
Photo credit: CLINK STREET CERAMICS
Our window gallery display space on Clink Street is London’s only public art display dedicated to the exhibition of pottery and ceramics. We show our own work as well as displays by guest artists. We host a number of guest displays each year, that tell many stories of craft and making. A vertical volume which may be conceived as a public room, it is a welcoming and inclusive space that has been designed with collaboration in mind.
Guest Displays
We aim to host a revolving programme of displays by guest ceramic artists throughout the year. Our display space is seen by thousands of people every day walking along the Thames Path. If you are a ceramic artist and are interested in exhibiting your work at our display space please get in touch with us. It is entirely free and we welcome enquiries from artists working across all styles and mediums.