Phoebe Collings-James’ work often eludes linear retellings of stories. Instead, her works function as “emotional detritus”: they speak of knowledges of feelings, the debris of violence, language and desire which are inherent to living and surviving within hostile environments. Recent works have been dealing with the object as subject, giving life and tension to ceramic forms.

As young nettle, a musical alias, she loves sound that totally envelopes her and is part of B.O.S.S., a QTIBIPOC sound system based in London. Drawn to high octane sensual emotional sound, with heavy bass and wild lyrical flows, she creates sound design for original music productions. Including Sounds 4 Survival, an undulating live performance created with SERAFINE1369, which asks the question of what an anti-assimilationist practice can be.

Ceramic fellowships include summer 2022 incubator resident at The Archie Bray in Helena, Montana and 2021 Freelands Ceramic Fellow at Camden Arts Centre. Both experiences made a vital impression on their ceramic practice and in Summer 2024 Collings-James will have their first US institutional show at Sculpture Center, NY.

Collings-James’s Mudbelly ceramics studio began as a personal practice and research outlet, but has since grown to encompass a shop and a teaching facility offering free ceramics courses for Black people in London, taught by Black ceramicists.