Tiles as Topography is a two-day studio intensive that reimagines the clay tile as a sculptural surface, moving past flat patterns into depth, contour, and landscape.
Led by ceramic artist Parneet Pahwa, the sessions invite you to build a series of tiles that read as fragments of a larger terrain, working with relief, erosion, and texture. Blending discussion with hands-on making, the workshop encourages you to think of a tile not as a decorative unit, but as a tactile, spatial surface that can hold traces of a landscape, real or imagined.
On day one, you'll look at references like erosion, topography, and aerial views, translating landscape into line and depth before building your first tiles, testing thickness, carving, and texture. On day two, you'll add surface treatments using slips, underglazes, and techniques like sgraffito, then bring your tiles together into a single collective terrain, closing with a group display and reflection.
By the end of the workshop, you'll have a series of sculptural tiles, fired two weeks after the program, along with a new way of translating landscapes into material and form.
Accessibility & Participation
No prior experience required.
Language: English
60 AED
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About the Instructor
Parneet Pahwa is an Indian ceramic artist and interdisciplinary maker whose practice explores storytelling, material memory, and the relationships between people, place, and everyday ritual. Working primarily through clay while extending into installation, weaving, printmaking, and material experimentation, she is interested in how materials can hold traces of lived experience and become vessels for shared narratives.
Her work often begins with personal encounters, conversations, and observations, drawing inspiration from family histories, food traditions, craft practices, migration, labour, and collective memory. Through both functional and sculptural forms, she would like to investigate how objects become markers of connection—holding stories of belonging, absence, celebration, and exchange. Whether creating intimate tableware or larger installations, her practice seeks to reveal the social and emotional significance embedded within everyday materials and acts of making.
At the heart of her work is a curiosity for process and material dialogue. Clay becomes a means of research, allowing her to explore themes of cultural preservation, environmental change, and human relationships through making. By combining traditional craft techniques with contemporary approaches, she creates work that invites reflection, conversation, and a deeper awareness of the connections that shape our shared experiences.