Formation, 2022

ceramics, steel

This work was part of an entity that included two ceramic works and one audio essay (in Finnish). Geographical poles are directly opposite to each other, and they can be used as guidance. A pole can also be understood as the central point of a clearly defined surface. A person’s pole, the navel, is a scar of the moment when they became one. This body of work gently examines the relations between the body, country, and language from the perspective of the formation of one’s cultural identity. It is a spiritual exploration into oneself, one’s place in the world, and one’s navigation within the world. If I were to be divided into countries, how many countries could my body encompass, what would it feel like, and how would one move around in there? In the ceramic pieces, the materiality of the soil appears on the surface of the clay, where images take form through the combination of different coloured clays. The layered rolling of the shapes to the clay slab combines techniques from printmaking and collage art. The pictorial world of the ceramic works is created from puns, metaphors and emotions of the human-geographical vocabulary.”