• Biography

    Wrecsam 2011

    Gold Medal for Craft & Design

    Peter Bodenham’s ceramic vessels and sculptural forms explore material as both cultural and geological witness. The work examines an archaeology of the Anthropocene, tracing how objects and surfaces carry environmental histories, cultural narratives, and human interventions over time. Using wheel-throwing, extrusion, handbuilding, and printing processes, Bodenham fuses reclaimed ceramic shards into vessels and assemblages.

     

    Many source materials are collected along the shoreline of West Wales, where discarded objects, plastics, and ceramic fragments are shaped by tides and erosion. For Bodenham, these fragments are not remnants of loss but generative matter, holding stories of use, breakage, and renewal within an ongoing material lifecycle.

  • Wrecsam 2011

    Pete's winning work was a collection of plates titled What We Are at Home With (Yr Hyn Rydyn Ni Gartref Gyda). One of the works in the series was a “Rebecca” plate featuring a stylised image of a man dressed in traditional Welsh women’scostume. The imagery refers to the Rebecca Riots, which took place between 1839 and 1843 across west and mid Wales, particularly in Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire. During the protests, men disguised themselves as women and became known as “Rebecca and her Daughters”, challenging the toll gate system and wider social and economic inequalities. The Rebecca image later re-emerged in contemporary Welsh protest culture. In 2001, five artists from west Wales dressed as modern “Rebeccas” appeared in north Pembrokeshire, around Mathry and Tre-bryn, during protests against planned genetically modified (GM) maize trials. The protesters deliberately invoked the spirit of the historic Rebecca movement, using the imagery and symbolism of Rebecca as a form of resistance. Some accounts and later retellings describe symbolic Rebecca-themed bicycle rides and processions connected with the campaign. Supported by local farmers, residents and environmental groups, the campaign was successful: the proposed GM crop trial at Castle Cenlas Farm was withdrawn in May 2001. A version of Bodenham’s Rebecca plate was later included in the National Eisteddfod Special Exhibition in Llanelli in 2014. Peter Bodenham collaborated with local historian Rev. Towyn Jones on the exhibition Dan y Wyneb (Under the Surface). The plate was displayed alongside a conch shell from the Carmarthenshire Museum collection, said to have been used to summon the original Rebecca rioters to the toll-gate protests, creating a direct connection between historical memory and contemporary interpretation.

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