Project
Becomings
engage · learn · reimagine · grow
Reimagining recovery narratives following adversity
Clay
Exploring recovery through touch, materiality and making
In Project Becomings
Clay was used within Project Becomings as a tactile and three-dimensional way of exploring experiences and understandings of trauma and recovery. Co-researchers could work directly with the material through shaping, pressing, building and reshaping, allowing ideas to take physical form through the process of making.
Working with clay brought particular attention to touch, embodiment and material transformation. Unlike methods that relied primarily on words or two-dimensional images, clay involved a direct encounter with a material that could respond to pressure, resist, change shape and be continually reworked.
The process therefore mattered alongside the object produced. What emerged was shaped through an interaction between body, material, movement and developing ideas, rather than simply being a representation of something already known.
About The Method
Clay is a three-dimensional creative medium that can be worked directly through touch — moulding, pressing, building, breaking apart and reshaping material by hand.
Its responsiveness means that a form does not need to be decided before making begins. Something can emerge through working with the material, be changed, dismantled or made again as ideas and experiences develop.
Within research, this makes the material process of making important alongside the finished object. Attention can be given to touch, sensation, movement, resistance and transformation, as well as to what someone ultimately creates or says about it.
Why Use Clay And Casting In Trauma And Recovery Research?
Trauma and recovery involve experiences that can be deeply embodied and may not always be easily expressed through language. Clay offers a way of exploring experience through touch, movement, form and material engagement, rather than asking people only to describe what they know or feel.
Working with clay allows forms to be changed, broken down and remade. The material responds to pressure and movement, creating possibilities for experiences and understandings to develop through the process of making, rather than needing to be decided in advance.
This was particularly relevant within Project Becomings, where clay was used to explore the Inner Child — a theme developed by co-researchers to consider childhood, innocence, imagination and parts of the self that may have been lost, harmed or silenced.
Clay therefore offered more than an alternative way of representing experience. It created opportunities to attend to what could emerge through encounters between bodies, materials, memories and developing ideas.
What Did Clay And Casting Make Possible?
Clay created opportunities for experiences of recovery to be felt and encountered through the material itself. The weight, temperature, texture and resistance of clay became part of the process, sometimes bringing sensations, memories and understandings into awareness through touch and movement rather than through words alone.
For some co-researchers, making opened possibilities for reconnecting with parts of themselves that had previously felt difficult to approach. One clay figure developed over many months, becoming a way of exploring vulnerability, strength and connection with the inner child. The relationship with the object continued to change long after the initial workshop, showing that meaning did not necessarily end when the making stopped.
Clay could also give physical form to experiences of feeling stuck, exhausted or unseen. Its heaviness and resistance became part of expressing these experiences, while continued encounters with the resulting object allowed its meaning to shift — from something associated with struggle towards recognition of compassion and resilience.
Across the research, these material encounters helped challenge the idea that recovery follows a predictable path. Objects could remain unfinished, acquire new meanings and resist the interpretations originally intended for them. Rather than simply representing recovery, the material participated in how recovery came to be felt, questioned and understood.
