Earth Makes
September 18–November 1, 2026
On June 10, the Gyeonggi Ceramics Biennale 2026 is 100 days away from the opening of its 13th edition. Launched in 2001, the Biennale is one of the world’s largest and longest-running international ceramics events, having brought together participants from more than 70 countries and welcomed audiences in the vicinity of 500,000 visitors. Hosted in Gyeonggi Province, Korea’s historic heartland of ceramics, the 13th edition will take place across Icheon, Gwangju, Yeoju, and the wider province—regions shaped by royal kilns, white porcelain, contemporary studio practice, industrial craft, education, and experimental research material. Icheon will host the central venue for the thematic exhibition and international competition, while Gwangju and Yeoju will host competitions, special exhibitions, the Kids Biennale, markets, workshops, and community programs.
Under the artistic direction of Daehyung Lee, the Biennale takes Earth Makes as its central theme. The concept challenges the conventional understanding of artworks as products of human creation alone: what if artworks are also made with the Earth itself? Here, clay is not merely a material shaped by human hands, but a living archive in which planetary time, material transformation, human history, and communal life are layered together.
Earth Makes is articulated through an expanded understanding of ceramics: from clay as material, to land as memory and social ground, to Earth as an ecological and technological horizon. Rather than approaching ceramics only as objects, the Biennale considers ceramics as an interface—connecting people and communities, carrying ancestral knowledge into future technologies, and restoring tactile experience in an age of screens, artificial intelligence, and digital production. The Biennale proposes a platform for sustaining artistic ecosystems, discourse, and international collaboration beyond the exhibition period.
The main exhibition unfolds through three chapters. Chapter 1 Made from Earth, focuses on clay and ceramics as active materials with their own agency. Chapter 2 Made by Earth, expands the conversation to land, memory, migration, architecture, landscape, and cultural histories embedded in soil, accompanied by the special exhibition Wind, Light, Earth. Chapter 3 Made in Earth, situates ceramics within planetary time, ecology, deep futures, and shared responsibility. Its special exhibition, Dear Future, developed with 28 Korean universities, presents emerging artists responding to the question: “What asset would we send from the Earth to the future 100 years from now?”
Reflecting this expanded understanding of ceramics, the Biennale brings together artists working across sculpture, installation, moving image, performance, sound, participation, and experimental material practice. Their works approach clay, land, and ceramics through the body, labour, language, ecology, technology, sound, social memory, and future imagination.
A key platform of the 2026 edition is Focus Australia, with Natalie King serving as Commissioner and leading its curatorial direction. Introducing Australian contemporary ceramic practices to Korean audiences, the platform foregrounds First Nations knowledge, ecological thinking, and the relationship between clay, land, community, and storytelling. Participating artists include Hermannsburg Potters, Yasmin Smith, and Renee So.
Additional participating artists include atelierJAK, Birender Kumar Yadav, Chang-Ho Kim, Elena Khurtova, Hanna Chang, Jun Myoung Kim, Karla García, Kiyoul Cha, Kleinian, LEE Wan, Lorie Ballage, Maja Quille, Megumi Naitoh, Myung-Joo Kim, Paul C., Scenocosme, Seongman Ahn, Serin Oh, Seungmo Park, Sung Jae Choi, Syyoung Kim, Varvara & Mar, William Cobbing, Youngchul Jang, Youngkak Cho, and 28 Emerging Artists from Korean Universities.
Artistic Director, Lee’s projects include the Korean Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale and CONNECT, BTS. King curated the Australian Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, the New Zealand Pavilion in 2022, and the Timor-Leste Pavilion in 2024, and has long worked with Australian and First Nations artists.
As Earth Makes approaches its opening, the Biennale invites artists, audiences, scholars, and communities to reconsider ceramics not as objects alone, but as relations between human intention, material agency, ecological care, and planetary futures. When the Earth makes, what might we witness and inherit?
Gyeonggi Ceramics Biennale 2026
Date: September 18–November 1 (45 days)
Location: Gyeonggi Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art (Icheon) / Gyeonggi Ceramic Museum (Gwangju) / Gyeonggi Museum of Ceramic Design (Yeoju)
Events
VIP opening: September 17
Gyeonggi Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art (GMoCCA) 263 Gyeongchungdae-ro 2697 beon-gil, Icheon, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea
Public opening: September 18
Gyeonggi Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art (GMoCCA) 263 Gyeongchungdae-ro 2697 beon-gil, Icheon, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea
Workshops & public programs: September 18–November 1
Gyeonggi Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art (Icheon) / Gyeonggi Ceramic Museum (Gwangju) / Gyeonggi Museum of Ceramic Design (Yeoju)
Forum: September 19
Gyeonggi Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art (Icheon)
Australian Culture Day (Focus Australia-related event): Scheduled for October (exact date TBC)
Gyeonggi Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art (Icheon)
