Te Uru is pleased to present the Portage Ceramic Awards 2023. This annual award provides a vital platform to showcase the diversity of contemporary clay practices in Aotearoa. Established in 2001, the Portage Ceramic Awards is a hallmark event for Aotearoa’s ceramics community, showcasing some of the best work currently being made, and serving as a platform for dialogue about developments in the ceramics field.The judge of the 2023 Portage Ceramic Awards was John Parker. Parker is an award-winning ceramic artist who has exhibited widely in Aotearoa and internationally. Parker gained a Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics at the Royal College of Art in London in 1975. He returned to Aotearoa to take up the post of Director of the Auckland Studio Potters centre in 1977 and was made a life member in 1999. Among the many honours he has received, Parker was awarded a Waitākere City Millennium Medal for services to the community in 2000 and was made a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate in 2010.Te Uru is delighted to announce Jino Jeong as the winner of the 2023 Portage Ceramic Premier Award for his work Celestial Thread: A Tapestry of Sunshine and Spiderwebs. This year’s Merit Award winners are Yueh Luo for Innerspace and Debbie Barber for There were no night stories in my head. That was ok.Congratulations to the 2023 finalists:Debbie Barber, Franca Bertani, Blue Black, Maak Bow, Michelle Bow, Annette Bull, Anna Campbell, Didi Chapman, Peter Collis, Julie Cromwell, Andrea du Chatenier, Suzy Dunser, Debbie Fleming, Dominique Ford, Mel Ford, Darryl Frost, Renate Galetzka, Kirsty Gardiner, Mandy Gargiulo, Pru Gudex, Evelyn Hodowany, Jino Jeong, Elise Johnston, Chuck Joseph, Ted Kindleysides, Nicole Kolig, Judith Lauvao, Yueh Luo, Kylie Matheson, Marama Mayrick, Annie Mciver, Matt And Kate Mclean, Jackie Muller, Sung Hwan Bobby Park, Aidan Raill, Kit Rennie, Louise Rive, John Roy, Rick Rudd, Takaaki Sakaguchi, Mary Schollum, Aaron Scythe, Liz Sharek, Annie Smits Sandano, Sarah Urwin and Teresa Watson.