Pottery workshops in Bologna: get your hands in clay at LAB 111

Bologna is a city you learn with your hands: the rough brick under the porticoes, the worn wood of osteria tables, the paper of books leafed through in the university district. Perhaps that is why a pottery workshop never feels out of place here — it is a way of slipping into the city's true rhythm, the slow, concrete pace of people who make things rather than just look at them.

At LAB 111, Stefania's ceramics studio, you can literally touch that rhythm. Clay spinning on the wheel, shapes emerging between your fingers, images transferred onto the surface of each piece: a space where craftsmanship meets visual experimentation, and where even someone who has never touched clay can enjoy a few hours of happy concentration.

Who is LAB 111

Behind LAB 111 is Stefania, a ceramicist with a double soul: clay on one side, photography and graphic design on the other. It is precisely this combination of passions that led her to explore the world of graphic techniques applied to ceramics — a fascinating territory where hand-shaped pieces become surfaces for images, marks and prints to come alive.

In her studio she offers wheel-throwing and hand-building courses, but also more unusual workshops: image transfer onto ceramics, experimental photography, screen printing. A range that speaks both to those looking for ceramics in its most classic form and to those coming from the visual world — graphic design, photography, illustration — who dream of seeing their own images take shape on a real object.

The experience: from raw clay to finished piece

A pottery workshop is first of all a physical experience. You start with a lump of clay and, step by step, give it a shape: at the wheel, where the clay spins and responds to the pressure of your hands, or through hand building, slower and more meditative, made of slabs, coils and fingers making small adjustments. Either way, time changes texture: two hours pass like ten minutes, and your phone stays forgotten in your bag.

LAB 111's offering covers a wide range of techniques:

• Wheel throwing, to learn how to centre the clay and pull up your first shapes
• Hand building, the most direct and accessible way into ceramics
• Image transfer onto ceramics, where graphic design and clay meet
• Experimental photography, for those who love seeing matter with fresh eyes
• Screen printing, to bring marks and prints onto the surface of your pieces

What do you take home? An object born from your own hands, of course. But also something less tangible: a new technique, the surprise of discovering what you can do, and that particular calm that working with clay leaves behind. Workshop dates are published directly on LAB 111's Handsome profile: that is where you will find upcoming sessions and all the details to join.

Why do it in Bologna

For those who live in or around Bologna, a pottery workshop is the perfect way to break the routine: an evening after work or a different kind of weekend, far from the usual plans. For those passing through — and Bologna, with its station at the centre of Italy, is an easy stop from any direction — it is a travel memory worth more than any souvenir: an object you made yourself, in a real studio, in one of Italy's most authentic cities.

And there is something natural about working clay in Emilia-Romagna, a land that has always treated craftsmanship and doing things well as part of its identity. An afternoon at LAB 111 pairs effortlessly with a walk under the porticoes, a wander through the Quadrilatero's food shops and a well-earned bite: the perfect Bologna day, hands in clay included.