Public Masterclass: Recycling Roman Ruins

Public Events Research Events

Join archaeologist Beth Munro, glassworker Shelley James and metalsmith Necole Schmitz to explore how ancient craftspeople transformed Roman materials, then mimic these methods to make your own creations! You will either work with glass ro metal on the day, recycling glass mosaics and metal pipes. This event will highlight recent archaeological research on Roman villa recycling and investigate the properties of ancient materials through exciting hands-on making. Participants will work with our expert makers to physically undertake Roman-style recycling and take home their own creations.

Dr Shelley James trained in textiles and printmaking before completing a PhD by practice in the Ceramics and Glass Department at the Royal College of Art. Her practice combines traditional approaches with the development of new techniques to explore the creative potential of glass. Shelley has an on-going residency at the Bristol Eye Hospital and has recently completed the prestigious Jerwood Commission in collaboration with psychologists and crystallographers to explore perception of space and symmetry. She is currently developing a new body of work to celebrate the discovery of chiral symmetry by Louis Pasteur for a series of workshops at Somerset House and the Gordon Museum.

Necole Schmitz is the Makespace Manager at Institute of Making, as well as an artist who is interested in materiality and the tactile experience of objects. Her practice encompasses a diverse range of disciplines and materials from thatching wheat to dancing to steel to textiles in her work, with a specialism in foundry work. Her training is in mould making, lost wax metal casting and other foundry work as well as metalwork and fabrication. She has a studio in London as well as an ongoing collaboration with an artist-run foundry in Dorset. When not at the Makespace, Necole is fabricating a cupola furnace for smelting iron.

Dr Beth Munro is Research Manager at the Institute of Making, and an archaeologist who specialises in the recycling of ancient materials and Roman villa architecture. She received her PhD in Archaeology from Oxford in 2010. She has worked as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in archaeology, and is currently a Research Associate at the Institute of Classical Studies, London.

The Institute of Making is a multidisciplinary research club for those interested in the made world: from molecules to buildings, synthetic skin to spacecraft, soup to diamonds, socks to cities. Through its Makespace, Materials Library and events programme, the Institute aims to provide all makers with a creative home in which to innovate, contemplate and understand all aspects of materials, and explore their relationship to making.

This is event is part of the Being Human Festival.

Image credits: Roman mosaic from Corinth, Greece photo courtesy of Carole Raddato. Roman lead water pipe Roman courtesy of Wellcome Collection. Roman villa with lead pipe courtesy of Beth Munro.