In late 2025, the Community Design Research Lab (funded by CRASSH) and Cambridge Room Research team launched an open call for an artist commission exploring how Cambridge is represented, documented, and understood through its social, spatial, historical, and cultural layers.

Following the open call, Marion Stuart and Hannelore Smith were selected from 51 applications to undertake the residency. Their project, Porcelain Narratives: Layers of Cambridge, explores alternative ways of mapping the city through collective experience, memory, and material experimentation.

The project began with a creative community workshop, where participants identified places in Cambridge that held personal, cultural, or shared significance. Through printmaking and clay impression techniques, they recorded stories, textures, and associations connected to these sites. These contributions then shaped a series of artist-led walks, during which Marion and Hannelore visited each location, gathering visual research, material traces, textures, and observations. This research informed the development of a series of hand-built porcelain fragments. Through print, impression, and mark-making, details encountered across the city were translated into material form.

Rather than illustrating individual stories, the artwork draws out common themes, recurring motifs, and connections, revealing the layered intersections between Cambridge’s historical and contemporary landscapes. Rooted in collaboration and dialogue, the residency brought together community knowledge and reflective artistic research.

You can find more details about the project via the digital book.

The completed work will be exhibited at CRASSH, followed by presentations at the Cambridge Room and a series of other locations across Cambridge, featuring additional works from the project.