Artist, educator and curator Francesca Anfossi doesn’t havea traditional studio, instead, she has Camden community landmark, Rochester Square. Anabandoned former nursery, in 2016 the site became the focus of a restorationproject by Francesca and her partner Eric Wragge, transforming it into aceramic studio, garden and kitchen built on the creative cycle: from earth(clay) to plants (garden) to plates (food). As well as being her own personalworkshop, over the last seven years Rochester Square has become a bedrock forCamden locals and London-wide ceramic artists.

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After training in fine-art, Francesca’s attention turned to the social aspect of craft with clay emerging as her primary medium. “I am inspired by its very nature,” she says, “it is a versatile, inclusive and non-hierarchical material.” These principles have become the life-force of her art practice and work at Rochester Square. Here, school children learn ceramics and gardening alongside established fine artists preparing new bodies of work –including Jonathan Baldock and Caroline Achaintre – and a rolling roster of Studio Members, who host workshops and collaborate on projects including the centre’s own sculpture garden.

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It is difficult to know exactly where Francesca’s work at RochesterSquare ends and her personal practice begins. “They are inextricably connected,”she explains, “with the majority of my projects conceived in direct collaboration with communities and evolving according to their needs.” After winning Whitegold Projects International Ceramics Prize in 2021, Francesca worked with Cornwall Neighbourhoods for Change to present ‘A CornishBanquet’, a community feast featuring plates and picnic blankets created from collages depicting the participants’ favourite foods. Most recently, for ‘A tavola con Rochester Square’, she produced and contributed to a group exhibition of ceramic furniture and objects at Museo della Ceramica in Savona, Italy, where the exhibition runs until 26 February 2024.

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Playing in the space between domesticity and non-functionalsculpture, Francesca’s works span multiple categories: from furniture andlighting to objects and installation. She says: “I create ceramics, but I aminterested in how the interaction of art making shifts pieces naturally intofunctional objects.” As such, many of Francesca’s most recognised pieces, suchas her egg cups and baskets, have emerged out of the practical necessities ofdaily life at Rochester Square. “We have seven hens” she says, “and every timeI went to collect their eggs, I didn’t know where to place them without themrolling around or looking like a pile.”

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It is this ongoing conversation between community and making that defines Francesca’s work and has allowed Rochester Square to become an engine for social life. Mondays are dedicated to communal lunches for the centre’sStudio Members, while between 2017 and 2019, this spirit of gathering extended to friends and neighbours, who were invited to bi-monthly dinners celebrating the studio’s activities. Meals were cooked by volunteers and eaten from handmade bowls by the artists themselves. “Much of what we do is about giving the participants involved opportunities to learn new skills and form new social bonds” says Francesca. “Rochester Square allows me that direct engagement, and as a result the barriers between art and craft, professional and amateur, work and leisure are removed.”

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