30/06/2026
Microtonal by Invisible Flock, Faqir Zulfiqar & Allah Jurio has been such a powerful project to witness, from the success of the exhibition itself to the workshops and the journey of the artwork as it continues to tour.
We were honoured to be part of delivering the clay workshops alongside Moz and Amy, bringing clay that had been dug from beneath Fayakunu Art Studio in Bradford during our 2025 renovations.
It felt incredibly meaningful that Fayakunu’s first workshop used this clay, starting with raw earth from beneath the studio and refining it into a workable material with the group. At the beginning, we had no idea how it would behave or whether it would survive the firing, so the process became a shared experiment in material, sound and making.
The borindo/bhorindo is an ancient clay wind instrument from Sindh, Pakistan, often associated with the deep material and musical histories of the Indus region. Its UNESCO recognition speaks to both its historical importance and the urgency of protecting the living knowledge of how it is made, played and passed on.
Across the sessions, the group explored different hand-building techniques, from pinch pots and coil building to working with natural grass fibres as cob to help the forms hold their shape. The recent heatwave made the clay’s workability a real challenge, but the group responded with patience, care and creativity, producing some incredible vessels.
Moz then fired the pieces, and we were so pleased that every pot survived. Once fired, the Bradford clay revealed its iron-rich red tones, along with a natural glittering surface caused by mica naturally present in the soil.
In the final session, the group decorated their vessels before we took them into the Microtonal exhibition space to play them as borindos. The exhibition responded to the sound, causing resonant vessels to sing back.
A beautiful full-circle moment: clay from beneath Fayakunu, shaped by many hands, fired into sound, and brought into conversation with Microtonal.
