Online update: 11th August  at 6pm BST

Practice! Practice!! Practice!!!        

Statement by Yuta Segawa 

One of the missions of SGW Lab is recognising the importance of craftsmanship, and over the past six months, people around the world have been thinking about the meaning of human labour and its uniqueness in the wake of Chat GPT.　I believe that a key consideration of this issue lies in practice.

I know that many of you have given Chat GPT a variety of questions and tasks. When I asked it, ‘How can I become a good potter?’, it replied, ‘Practice!!! Practice!!! Practice!!!’.　I found this answer interesting because, ironically, practice is the one thing that Chat GPT cannot do.

Practicing in craft is the process of learning how to work with materials using the body and fine-tuning the degree to which the body is moved.

However, practice is an unproductive activity. The senses and theories of a good craftsperson are lost with his death, and a new young craftsman must learn everything through practice.　This fine-tuning of each individual’s physical senses cannot be taught verbally.　In the case of artificial intelligence (AI), the senses are stored as data, and once successful, the theory will never be lost.

However, is it not precious to work hard at an unproductive activity? The work produced in the process of practice is accidental and extremely attractive.


This exhibition shows the results of the SGW Lab staff’s wheel-thrown practices over the past several months. The pieces vary in thickness, and some are distorted, revealing the process of fine-tuning bodies and materials.