Andile Dyalvane is one of South Africa’s most accomplished ceramic masters. Born near Qobo-Qobo in the Eastern Cape, Dyalvane spent his childhood embedded in traditional rural Xhosa lifeways, developing an intimate relationship with umhlaba (the land, clay, mother earth). He holds a National Diploma in Ceramic Design from Port Elizabeth Technikon and is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics. Dyalvane has participated in residencies across Denmark, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan, and has shared his insight through masterclasses and workshops both locally and internationally. His work is widely exhibited in museums across the world, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louwe Foundation.
Yoshimi Futamura was born in Nagoya, Japan, and now resides in Paris, producing works invariably inspired by nature. She studied ceramics at the School of Ceramic Art in Seto, Japan, and later graduated from the Center artisanal de Ceramique at the Duperré school in Paris in 1994. Her sculptural forms are intended to be reflections of nature and are infused with a vibrant living essence. Futamura has exhibited prolifically around the globe, with works held in over twenty public collections internationally, including The Brooklyn Museum, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the National Ceramics Museum in Sèvres.
Xanthe Somers is a Zimbabwean ceramic artist based in London whose work offers a critical reading of extraction economies and notions of domesticity within post-colonial contexts, with a particular lens focused on the country of her birth. She graduated from Michaelis School of Fine Art, UCT, in 2015 and was subsequently awarded a grant to study MA Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her large-scale, vibrant works carry barbed social and political critiques; their surfaces are punctured, woven, or adorned with meticulously shaped and painted details. Somers has been named a finalist for the Loewe Craft Prize 2026 and exhibited at the National Gallery of Singapore in May 2026.
Dr. Wendy Gers is a leading scholar, curator, and advisor in the field of South African and African ceramics. Author of the landmark Scorched Earth: 100 Years of Southern African Potteries (Jacana Media, 2015), her research has fundamentally shaped the way southern African ceramic history is understood and documented. Her interdisciplinary research investigates regenerative artistic practices, environmentally conscious materials and the role of artists and communities in advancing climate justice and social change. With a PhD from the University of Sunderland, she has held academic and curatorial positions across Africa, Europe and the United States, including at the Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics and the University of Groningen, bringing a rare depth and authority to the panel.
Zizipho Poswa is an award-winning ceramic artist whose hand-coiled clay speaks on the role of Xhosa women and traditional symbols within a contemporary landscape. She studied Surface Design at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and, shortly after graduating, co-founded the independent ceramic studio Imiso with Andile Dyalvane in 2005. In recent years, Poswa has mounted major solo exhibitions across three continents. Her work has been presented at Frieze New York, Frieze London, and Art Basel Miami Beach, and in 2026 she participated in Woven Forms II during Milan Art Week and Aether Commons: Refracted Cosmologies in Warsaw. Her ceramic sculptures can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Loewe Foundation, in addition to numerous private collections around the world.
Dr. Elizabeth Perrill is a researcher, curator, and writer whose work explores ceramic production and contemporary art in Southern Africa, with a focus on the economic, institutional, and cultural forces shaping artistic practice. Her scholarship engages questions of gender, race, materiality, pedagogy, and craft. She is the author of Burnished: Zulu Ceramics between Urban and Rural South Africa (2022), which examines the aesthetic and economic transformations of Zulu ceramics and received the 2020 Millard Meiss Publication Award from the College Art Association. Her earlier book, Zulu Pottery (2012), has supported indigenous knowledge curricula in South African schools. From 2023–2025, Perrill served as Guest Curator at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, contributing to the first major North American exhibition of telephone wire basketry.
Andile Dyalvane is one of South Africa’s most accomplished ceramic masters. Born near Qobo-Qobo in the Eastern Cape, Dyalvane spent his childhood embedded in traditional rural Xhosa lifeways, developing an intimate relationship with umhlaba (the land, clay, mother earth). He holds a National Diploma in Ceramic Design from Port Elizabeth Technikon and is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics. Dyalvane has participated in residencies across Denmark, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan, and has shared his insight through masterclasses and workshops both locally and internationally. His work is widely exhibited in museums across the world, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louwe Foundation.
Yoshimi Futamura was born in Nagoya, Japan, and now resides in Paris, producing works invariably inspired by nature. She studied ceramics at the School of Ceramic Art in Seto, Japan, and later graduated from the Center artisanal de Ceramique at the Duperré school in Paris in 1994. Her sculptural forms are intended to be reflections of nature and are infused with a vibrant living essence. Futamura has exhibited prolifically around the globe, with works held in over twenty public collections internationally, including The Brooklyn Museum, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the National Ceramics Museum in Sèvres.
Xanthe Somers is a Zimbabwean ceramic artist based in London whose work offers a critical reading of extraction economies and notions of domesticity within post-colonial contexts, with a particular lens focused on the country of her birth. She graduated from Michaelis School of Fine Art, UCT, in 2015 and was subsequently awarded a grant to study MA Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her large-scale, vibrant works carry barbed social and political critiques; their surfaces are punctured, woven, or adorned with meticulously shaped and painted details. Somers has been named a finalist for the Loewe Craft Prize 2026 and exhibited at the National Gallery of Singapore in May 2026.
Dr. Wendy Gers is a leading scholar, curator, and advisor in the field of South African and African ceramics. Author of the landmark Scorched Earth: 100 Years of Southern African Potteries (Jacana Media, 2015), her research has fundamentally shaped the way southern African ceramic history is understood and documented. Her interdisciplinary research investigates regenerative artistic practices, environmentally conscious materials and the role of artists and communities in advancing climate justice and social change. With a PhD from the University of Sunderland, she has held academic and curatorial positions across Africa, Europe and the United States, including at the Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics and the University of Groningen, bringing a rare depth and authority to the panel.
Zizipho Poswa is an award-winning ceramic artist whose hand-coiled clay speaks on the role of Xhosa women and traditional symbols within a contemporary landscape. She studied Surface Design at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and, shortly after graduating, co-founded the independent ceramic studio Imiso with Andile Dyalvane in 2005. In recent years, Poswa has mounted major solo exhibitions across three continents. Her work has been presented at Frieze New York, Frieze London, and Art Basel Miami Beach, and in 2026 she participated in Woven Forms II during Milan Art Week and Aether Commons: Refracted Cosmologies in Warsaw. Her ceramic sculptures can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Loewe Foundation, in addition to numerous private collections around the world.
Dr. Elizabeth Perrill is a researcher, curator, and writer whose work explores ceramic production and contemporary art in Southern Africa, with a focus on the economic, institutional, and cultural forces shaping artistic practice. Her scholarship engages questions of gender, race, materiality, pedagogy, and craft. She is the author of Burnished: Zulu Ceramics between Urban and Rural South Africa (2022), which examines the aesthetic and economic transformations of Zulu ceramics and received the 2020 Millard Meiss Publication Award from the College Art Association. Her earlier book, Zulu Pottery (2012), has supported indigenous knowledge curricula in South African schools. From 2023–2025, Perrill served as Guest Curator at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, contributing to the first major North American exhibition of telephone wire basketry.