Magdalena Gazur is a graduate of the Faculty of Ceramics and Glass at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław – she obtained her diploma in 2006 in the 1st Applied Ceramics Design Studio led by Professor Lidia Kupczyńska-Jankowiak. Between 2005 and 2006, she also studied at the University of Wolverhampton (UK) at the Faculty of Ceramics (2006) and at the Faculty of Graphic Communication (2005-2006). In 2010, she completed the postgraduate course “Design Design in New Product Development Management” carried out by the Institute of Industrial Design in cooperation with the Warsaw School of Economics. Since 2013, she has been working at Fabryka Naczyń Kamionkowych “Manufaktura” in Bolesławiec as a chief designer and member of the team responsible for building the plant’s brand.

Although after her studies she became an assistant in the ceramics design studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, she did not intend to devote herself to designing industrial forms. She first came to Bolesławiec in 2009 as a participant in the 45th International Ceramic and Sculpture Plein-Air. In 2010-2011, she served as the commissioner of this plein-air. During the plein-air workshops, she was often a guest at the ” Manufaktura”, thanks to which the owners of the plant noticed her talent and offered her cooperation. Soon, still as an external designer, she created the first breakfast set, which was very well received. As a result, she was offered permanent employment. Since then, she has already designed several unique collections combining the search for new product developments with the tradition of Bolesławiec ceramics. She is most sentimental about the first of these, entitled “The 1960s”, as she makes no secret of the fact that she is greatly influenced by the Polish industrial design of the 1960s and 1970s.

Magdalena Gazur is also the initiator and co-author of the “Polish Table” project, as part of which three Lower Silesian producers: Bolesławiec Manufaktura, Porcelana Krzysztof from Wałbrzych and Huta Szkła Kryształowego Julia from Piechowice, have jointly created three sets of dishes combining stoneware, porcelain and glass. The breakfast set No. 1, which is part of this collection, was awarded the “must have” mark at the Łódź Design Festival in 2016.

She considers looking at human behaviour at the table and translating it into forms and shapes in the design process to be very important and the most difficult part of her work. It is only then that she sees how much she still has to learn. And although he is aware that the efforts of a designer are often invisible to the ordinary user, he is not discouraged by this, because his work is guided by the motto: “the best design is the one you can’t see”.

Magdalena Gazur also works as a lecturer in the Department of Interdisciplinary Activities in Ceramics and Glass at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. At the same time, she is involved in computer graphics and exhibition activities. She has curated many exhibitions on contemporary industrial design. Collections of vessels designed by her can be found in the collections of the National Museum in Kraków and the National Museum in Wrocław.