From dust to ware
Clay is an exhibition investigating one of our most natural materials, clay, which lies hidden just beneath our feet, almost everywhere in the Swedish landscape. Kristine Thenman and Joel Stuart-Beck are both ceramicists working in Arvika. For a couple of years, they have been working together on a project based on local clay, that they first dug up and prepared, then shaped and fired into functional ware. The process and the result are now on public display in Malmö. The exhibition is organised by the Swedish Crafts Centre in collaboration with Konstfrämjandet Skåne.
Clay from the area around Arvika is suitable for pottery production. This is nothing new; predecessors also made bricks and roof tiles or built with clay mortar. In those days, it was just as self-evident to use local clay as it was to locally produce food and clothing. Today, digging up and preparing your own clay is anything but obvious, it is a time-consuming and laborious process. At the same time, local materials and local production have become increasingly relevant in a changing world.
In the Clay project, Kristine and Joel have got to the bottom of their shared material. They have dug, carried, soaked, sifted, dried, kneaded and tested to finally shape and decorate. Through all these steps, they have come closer to the material, but also to previous generations of potters, who always used local clay, and to each other as colleagues. Through physical work, they have got to know the different clays and explored their possibilities and limitations. Collaboration has been central and culminated in the production phase where their personal forms of expression have been allowed to merge into each other in a kind of dialogue of making. Their individual design ideas and expressions have been brought together into a unified result.
The Clay project was originally supported by Region Värmland.
Artist Talk
Friday 23 May at 5:30 pm, you are warmly welcome to attend a guided tour and listen to a public conversation with the exhibitors Kristine Thenman and Joel Stuart-Beck.
For Southern Sweden Design Days the exhibition Clay is organised by the Swedish Crafts Centre in collaboration with Konstfrämjandet Skåne, with support from Region Skåne.
