About: The Project

This project shares Hiroe Swen’s knowledge, technique and passion for ceramic art and aims to inspire future ceramic artists.

The idea for the project began in mid-2020 when Paul Davis, a close friend of Hiroe and a prominent ceramic artist, asked Hiroe if somebody could record her creative process in video. Hiroe decided to embark on this project to document her creative process and found project manager Mayumi Shinozaki.

The project became possible with funding from the ACT Government through ArtsACT funding, and the NSW Government through Create NSW.

Over two and a half years, twelve contributors worked on the project. It was a long process but Hiroe’s passion and warmth were contagious and saw the team effort through to completion. Art critics, academics, ceramicists, art curators, archivists, community groups, ceramic art groups, craft associations and Hiroe’s supporters assisted this project.

Hiroe is a prolific and always-evolving artist. She creates almost all her works by hand-building technique and constantly adds new elements to each piece. There are no two artworks that are the same. Her career spans over six decades and is still going strong. It is impossible to create a complete catalogue that covers all her works. But thanked to the effort of twenty Australian art galleries which provided images and information about Hiroe’s artworks in their collections, our ‘catalogue raisonné’ has become a substantial resource.

We hope this project will be celebrated as an example of ceramic artists’ digital archives in Australia.

The world of Hiroe Swen digital archive is supported by the ACT Government through ArtsACT funding and the NSW Government through Create NSW: