The Revolution Will Be Ceramicised: A Return to the Radical

3-20 September 2026

Opening Night 10 September 5-8pm 

We are honoured to have participation of Joe Rush who was moving force behind One Foot In The Grove.

In the autumn of 2009, beneath the soaring, brutalist concrete of London’s Westway, the landscape of Ladbroke Grove was transformed. As part of Mutate Britain’s legendary counter-culture exhibition, One Foot in the Grove, exhibition, artist Carrie Reichardt and the Treatment Rooms Collective unleashed The Revolution Will Be Ceramicised—a sprawling, radical ceramic mural that dared to turn the permanent medium of clay into a mouthpiece for counter-culture dissent.

This wasn’t merely an art installation; it was a radical reclamation of public space. While the exhibition itself was a fleeting moment in London’s creative history, the mural refused to vanish. Like the spirit of the Grove itself, this work survived, embedded into the local landscape near the Portobello Film Festival office and the repurposed Westway toilets—a testament to a time when art was meant to be lived in, walked past, and fought for. 

Seventeen years after that initial spark, the spirit of that movement is being revisited through a compelling new exhibition. This show reunites key members of the Treatment Rooms Collective, offering a rare look at how their creative practices have evolved since they bonded over tiles and grout in 2009.

At the heart of the show is brand new work by Carrie Reichardt. Known for her fearless fusion of traditional craft and contemporary subversion, Reichardt continues to master the art of the "reworked ceramic plate." By reclaiming vintage ceramics and applying intricate ceramic transfers, she utilizes domestic imagery to house biting satire, dark humour, and sharp feminist critiques. These are not merely decorative pieces; they are vessels for rebellion.

The exhibition expands beyond the plate, showcasing a collaborative energy that defines the collective. Other artists involved in the original 2009 project are returning to the medium with fresh eyes, presenting new mosaics and ceramic sculptures that honour their shared history while forging independent paths. Some pieces emerge from direct collaborations with Reichardt, reflecting the communal, hands-on approach that first birthed the "Revolution" manifesto, while others stand as individual explorations of technique and thematic evolution.

This gathering is more than a retrospective; it is a testament to the longevity of the Treatment Rooms’ vision.  Whether you were there in 2009 to see the original mural take shape on the concrete, or you are discovering the legacy of this movement for the first time, this exhibition offers a rare chance to see how defiance matures, how craftsmanship adapts, and why the revolution—if it is to survive at all—must be ceramicised. 

Join us as we fire the kiln once more.

Carrie Reichardt is an outspoken, politically charged, and ceramic-slinging artist who leaves a trail of poetry and prose in her wake. Her award-winning public work reflects a sustained engagement with people, place, and politics, with a focus on marginalized groups and their hidden histories. Reichardt draws on local archival sources to create works that resonate with the communities they inhabit, describing her practice as a form of "ceramic tapestry" that weaves local narratives together.

Reichardt has been involved in community and public art projects for nearly three decades, designing and consulting on large-scale mosaic murals both in the UK and abroad. In 2017, she made history as the first visual artist to complete a residency at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, further cementing her reputation for site-specific excellence. Following this, in 2018, she completed her most ambitious personal endeavor: the twenty-year transformation of her west London home into a monumental, tile-covered mosaic masterpiece.

Her expertise and contribution to art and craft have been widely recognized; in 2013, she was awarded the prestigious Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship to research the advancement of community mosaics in the UK. Her professional journey includes significant residencies, notably at Camberwell Art College (2009) and The Clay Studio in Philadelphia (2014).

Beyond her acclaimed public and community-led initiatives, Reichardt maintains a robust private practice. Her personal work—often raw, provocative, and deeply contemplative—has been exhibited both in the UK and internationally. She has been a prominent figure in the contemporary art scene, participating in high-profile exhibitions and curating shows including with the Saatchi Gallery. Through her tireless dedication to her medium, Reichardt continues to challenge the boundaries of contemporary ceramics, ensuring that the voices of the overlooked are etched permanently into the public consciousness.

Karen Francesca is an artist whose practice spans 3 decades of public art and garden-making. Rooted in the environmental movement, informed by a Fine Art background, and shaped by her work as an Art Psychotherapist, her artwork addresses the growing disconnection between people and land, and the social consequences of environmental degradation. Francesca’s approach is interdisciplinary—combining agriculture, craft, ecology, nutrition, and landscape with social engagement. 

Francesca’s new, solo work translates her large-scale environmental work into miniatures and plaques for home and garden. Intricate, layered compositions aim to echo the complexity of living systems, exploring repetition, pattern, structure, and ornamentation, drawing on both natural forms and cultural motifs. 

This work reflects Francesca’s continued interest in materiality, using ceramics to ground abstract ideas in tactile, earthly processes. It reflects a belief in the intelligence and resilience of ecological systems, including the human body, and calls for a renewed sense of mutuality and care. 

Ultimately, Francesca’s work invites a reimagining of unity—where all life is interconnected, shaped by natural rhythms, and sustained through cycles of transformation, balance, and coexistence.

ATM (@atmstreetart) paints endangered species street art on urban walls to draw attention to the environmental crisis, to inspire a sense of wonder at the beauty and significance of these creatures and to create a renewed concern for them and a desire to protect them and restore their habitats. Small individual changes repeated on a large scale can have dramatically positive effects.

He also uses other art mediums as part of his practice.

WONNISH is a Mosaic Artist that has learnt her trade at the Treatment Rooms over the last 15 years. She has found a joy in graphic modern Mosaics. Playing a key part in many community projects over the years politics craft and community are the central themes to everything she does.

Teddy Baden is a multidisciplinary artist and curator best known for his paintings of dogs. Often using cryptic and humorous narratives in his work where dogs wear snorkels and spew coloured paint!

His artwork is a celebration of an incredible relationship, a celebration of the human races historic and endearing subsumption of another species.  

Nick Reynolds Is a musician with the band Alabama 3 who penned the famous Soprano’s theme, artist known for his eerie death masks and son of Bruce Reynolds the mastermind of the 1963 Great Train Robbery. 

Joe Rush

Joe Rush is the onsite designer at the Glastonbury Festival responsible for the sci-fi sculptures made from scrap and car parts including Car Henge and the Glastonbury On Sea pier.

Joe started out in West London/Ladbroke Grove with Gentle Ghost and formed the Mutoid Waste Company with like minded creative activists. The Mutoids left UK in 1989 to spend many years in Europe setting up massively popular art environments and events in Holland, Germany and Italy.

In 2009 he curated One Foot In The Grove under the Westway with street art legends like Mode 2, Paul Insect, Dr D, and fellow Mutoids Giles Walker and Alex Wright.

Tif Hunter

Tif Hunter made his name as car photographer of choice for likes of BMW for their ad campaigns. He provided the photographs for  Steven Bayley’s classic Cars (Hachette 2012) He has recently moved from his studio in Bermondsey to a barn near Hay On Wye to concentrate on tin plate pictures using original 19th century technology.

Portobello Film Festival program: https://www.portobellofilmfestival.com