COVID, clay, and the digital: The role of digital media in pottery skill development during the COVID-19 pandemic in Britain

Abstract

The COVID-19 lockdowns in Britain during 2020 and 2021 deprived people of access to studios and workshops in which we typically understand the learning and practising of skilled crafts to occur through working amongst others with materials. Recent literature on skill and craft has argued that it develops through social, participatory, and embodied processes in shared situated contexts. I argue that attention to the role of digital media within these ecologies is key to understanding how people continued to learn new craft skills during the pandemic. Drawing on Material Engagement Theory and the concept of digital materiality from digital sensory anthropology, I develop a case study around people practising pottery in Britain during the pandemic. I demonstrate how engagements with digital media are central to skill development, highlighting how the ‘digital’ and ‘terrestrial’ cannot be disentangled, and thus emphasising the importance of attending to the total hybrid learning ecology.