“Colonial Shino”: A case study of cultural importation translation & transaction

Abstract

In 1966, the New Zealand potter Len Castle travelled to Japan on a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council fellowship and 'discovered' Shino ware (a glaze first developed in the Mino and Seto areas of Japan during the Momoyama period, 1568-1600). Upon his return, Castle sought to imitate these historical exemplars. By trial and error, he evolved a smoother version, sufficiently sanitized for use in the domestic context. In so doing, he coined the phrase 'Colonial Shino'. Subsequently this term has been used to describe the ethos associated with the effervescent flourishing of the studio pottery movement within New Zealand between the 1950s and 1980s.

This discussion seeks to map the distinctive socio-political and geographic conditions out of which this particular craft practice emerged. For the most part, an understanding of New Zealand cultural production operates within the appropriative paradigms associated with British colonialism and global capitalism. In the absence of indigenous clay traditions, local ceramics had to hitch a ride here on the back of industry, ceramic water pipes, bricks and lavatories. Citation and appropriation were by necessity the hallmark of aesthetic invention.