International Tea Day, celebrated on 15 December, is a holiday for tea growers and producers. This is a moment to take a careful look at the way tea leaves have to cover before they ennd up in our cup, teapot or bowl. The BOWL Ceramics and Tea Days is a two-day festival focusing our attention on the usually unknown or overlooked hard human work.
On 15 December 2018 on the premises of the Arsenał Municipal Gallery and on 16 December 2018 in the Palm House of Poznań, full of exotic plants, in the course of lectures, workshops, stories, meetings, tastings and exhibitions, we will try to convince participants to carefully make their consumer choices when buying tea and ceramics. The vessel and its content, combined with the conscious selection of appropriate water, create a specific synergy. The BOWL, or CZARKA, is a cooperation of tea enthusiasts, travellers, artists, biologists and cultural, artistic and scientific institutions. We invite all who care for sustainable development to "quaff from this large bowl" of knowledge, experience and activities and to fill it with new information, tips and inspirations.
Please note: the number of participants in the workshops is limited and registration is obligatory. Burnt pottery will be ready for collection in the Arsenał Gallery after 21 December 2018. Admission to the lectures and the ceremony is free.
AGENDA:
WORKSHOPS
11.00 – 12.00 Family pottery workshop Drinking Vessels
moderator: Katarzyna Poniecka
The children and their caretakers will make clay cups, bowls and other dishes by themselves. The trainers will also talk about dishes for drinking delicious and healthy tea.
Participation fee: a child– PLN 20, an adult – PLN 20 (PLN 15 – every subsequent child)
Booking: glinianakula@gmal.com
12.00 – 13.00 Art workshop Tea Painting Games for the Youngest
moderator: Agata Gera
The youngest participants will familiarise themselves with different kinds of teas and infusions from other plants, which will be used as dyes for creating a Christmas card.
admission free
12.15 – 12.45 Workshop of decorating pottery mugs (1st group)
moderator: Pavla Koralewska
During these workshops, each participant will receive a mug and instructions on how to decorate the pottery. The painted dishes will be ready for collection after class.
Participation fee: PLN 25 per person
Booking: pavla@ceramika-design.eu
12.45 – 13.15 Workshop of decorating pottery mugs (2nd group)
moderator: Pavla Koralewska
During these workshops, each participant will receive a mug and instructions on how to decorate the pottery. The painted dishes will be ready for collection after class.
Participation fee: PLN 25 per person
Booking: pavla@ceramika-design.eu
13.30 – 15.00 Workshops of making bowls inspired by Japanese aesthetics
moderator: Katarzyna Poniecka
We will get to know the method and style of creating exceptional tea vessels inspired by Japanese culture. Once made, the cups will be glazed and burned in the studio.
Participation fee: PLN 60 per person
Booking: glinianakula@gmail.com
15.00 – 15.30 Workshop of decorating pottery mugs (3rd group)
moderator: Pavla Koralewska
During these workshops, each participant will receive a mug and instructions on how to decorate the pottery. The painted dishes will be ready for collection after class.
Participation fee: PLN 25 per person
Booking: pavla@ceramika-design.eu
15.30 – 16.00 Workshop of decorating pottery mugs (4th group)
moderator: Pavla Koralewska
During these workshops, each participant will receive a mug and instructions on how to decorate the pottery. The painted dishes will be ready for collection after class.
Participation fee: PLN 25 per person
Booking: pavla@ceramika-design.eu
LECTURES
11.00 – 11.50 Water – the Mother of Tea
moderators: Martyna Kubiak, Agata Ożarowska
Appropriate dried tea leaves and ceramics well selected for brewing and drinking tea are not the only elements of a recipe for ideal-tasting and healthy tea. The key to success is water. If it is of poor quality, it strips tea of its taste and health benefits. It is therefore worth learning simple ways to take care of the quality of water and to keep the right temperature of it in our hurried everyday life.
12.00 – 12.50 Between life and death – a tea sansara at the foot of the Himalayas in Nepal
moderator: Agata Ożarowska
In April 2015, the world was shocked by the dramatic consequences of the earthquakes in Nepal. Five months earlier, Agata Ożarowska had found her tea trail in the area of one of the eight-thousand-meter peaks, Mount Makalu, on a tea plantation there. The events that took place later were a perfect reflection of the notion of Hindu sansara - a metaphorical wheel of birth and death, a cycle of our journey. The stories will be accompanied by a tasting of tea from this region.
13.00 – 14.00 Japanese plantations of happy tea
moderator: Jolanta Jona
In the summer of 2018 Jolanta Jona had the chance to visit several Japanese tea plantations and see with her own eyes how tea is grown and produced there. Through his story about the plantations, she will take us to the Japanese gardens and people who work there and whose life takes place around and with tea. We invite you to see photos and stories about organic teas, about the weary Camellia sinensis shrubs, as well as about making tea by hand.
14.10 – 15.00 Chawan – a magic bowl on the Japanese path of tea
moderator: Anna Molska
Raku eksperyment was the name of the March 2017 workshops held in the Academy of Arts in Szczecin by the Japanese potter Masashi Suzuki. Masashi derives his art from Japanese tradition. The workshops were devoted not only to learning how to make traditional matcha tea bowls, but above all they were a meeting with unusual sensitivity, respect and tradition of celebrating joint tea-drinking. Anna Molska will introduce us to the figure of Mashasi, his style of work and tell us how these meetings resonate today in her pottery workshop and in everyday life.
15.15 – 16.00 THE TEA PATH – a tea-brewing ceremony
Attention, respect and great sensitivity are the hallmarks of different tea ceremonies in Japan, China and Taiwan. Referring to the roots of tea culture, we will take the participants to the Chanoyu mystical tea-making ritual from the Land of the Cherry Blossom.
BAZAAR
11.00 – 16.00 TEA STALL
Teas from a familiar source will be available all day long at a small tea stand. In order to emphasise the role of work in the cultivation and production of tea and to respect the principles of sustainability, only organic and fair-trade tea will be sold.
The Festival is continued on December 16 in the Poznań Palm House.