t.e. 218

subterranean formation

The project is a research led investigation, using the tools, process, and soil / clay to inform the realised object.

By allowing the material itself to be extracted and manipulated on site using set tools and processes, the clay informs its own aesthetic, creating a dialogue between the finished aesthetic, history of the location, and the process that was used. The process informs the clay and the clay informs the process. The ‘decoration’ becomes the marker of how and where it was created. This dialogue created between the tensions of the object and its creation allow us to explore the intricacies of the relationship between ourselves and the clay in which the object has been born, to pare back and strip the decoration to its most natural form, our processes will facilitate the clay to express its own identity.

Traditionally clay is dug out of the ground, refined and then shaped one way or another by a craftsman. In the finalised object you can therefore often see much of the craftsman and his energy.
The artists wanted to turn this process upside down and remove the individual from the material, where the finalised object is a result of a controlled uncertainty.

By digging down to a clay vein and creating a cylindrical hole in it that was fired into with a gas burner, they have defined the inner part of the vessel. The outside of it however is completely controlled be the surrounding soil. After a certain amount of time of firing the vessel is then gently pulled out of the ground, as if it were a artefact in an archaeology excavation and only then its appearance is discovered. 

subterranean formation consists of 9 vessels.

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