the Modeling; Ceramic studies, Sundaymorning@EKWC (2019 - 2020)
the Modeling; Ceramic studies was my residency project at the European Ceramic Work Centre. For this series, I explored the possibilities of displaying the chemical potential of ceramic materials. As a starting point, I used my photographic procedure as a model to try and build similar worlds, using layers of crystalline zinc silicate. This time, the formation, shapes and colours are determined by heat, oxides in the recipes and layers in the claybody
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Craft
During my residency I came across an essay from Douglas Coupland in a book called 40 under 40, Craft Future. His proposal, to reclassify “contemporary craft” as art-objects that deploy craftsmanship as their medium, resonate strongly with my personal motivation to explore the material properties of ceramics:
[..] Craft?! Yikes! Spit take. Craft is not art. Craft is skill based. Craft is sentimental. Craft has no critical rigor. Craft means that a (one must grudgingly admit) creative person has chosen to limit his or her expression to one medium - one medium - in a post medium world where it is only the idea that is permitted to generate form [...] Since the realm of art began to strobe ad flicker with (video) installations, light-scapes, and soundscapes, isms of all sorts flourished and multiplied. To walk into a contemporary art museum anywhere on earth, one has now come to expect by rote, the walled-off room containing flickering and squawking images projected by a highly lumened digital projector, or empty floor space with perhaps some chalk outlines or a piece of string [..] the problem is the phrase “come to expect”. One now often feels let down by the contemporary art museum unless it delivers to us a set of objects and experiences that feel like contemporary art.
[..] And enter the next generation of craft: skill married with what seems to be critical rigor and a willingness that, in the presence of an increasingly arid conceptual realm, now feels almost radical. One can look at some of the contemporary art being made and reclassify it by saying that rather than it being, it is folk art that uses modernist vernaculars as its medium. Similarly, one can reclassify some contemporary “craft” as art objects that deploy craftsmanship as their medium. It’s wordplay, but it’s increasingly more relevant wordplay.
Made possible with the generous support of Fonds Kwadraat & EKWC
During my residency I came across an essay from Douglas Coupland in a book called 40 under 40, Craft Future. His proposal, to reclassify “contemporary craft” as art-objects that deploy craftsmanship as their medium, resonate strongly with my personal motivation to explore the material properties of ceramics:
[..] Craft?! Yikes! Spit take. Craft is not art. Craft is skill based. Craft is sentimental. Craft has no critical rigor. Craft means that a (one must grudgingly admit) creative person has chosen to limit his or her expression to one medium - one medium - in a post medium world where it is only the idea that is permitted to generate form [...] Since the realm of art began to strobe ad flicker with (video) installations, light-scapes, and soundscapes, isms of all sorts flourished and multiplied. To walk into a contemporary art museum anywhere on earth, one has now come to expect by rote, the walled-off room containing flickering and squawking images projected by a highly lumened digital projector, or empty floor space with perhaps some chalk outlines or a piece of string [..] the problem is the phrase “come to expect”. One now often feels let down by the contemporary art museum unless it delivers to us a set of objects and experiences that feel like contemporary art.
[..] And enter the next generation of craft: skill married with what seems to be critical rigor and a willingness that, in the presence of an increasingly arid conceptual realm, now feels almost radical. One can look at some of the contemporary art being made and reclassify it by saying that rather than it being, it is folk art that uses modernist vernaculars as its medium. Similarly, one can reclassify some contemporary “craft” as art objects that deploy craftsmanship as their medium. It’s wordplay, but it’s increasingly more relevant wordplay.
Made possible with the generous support of Fonds Kwadraat & EKWC