The exhibition Porous Worlds shows a cross-section of Pauliina Pöllänen’s explorations of ceramic relief, carried out as part of her scholarship in artistic research at the Faculty of Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen. Pöllänen’s PhD project is an in-depth meditation on the relief form, where she examines its intermediate state between craft and art, sculpture and image, as well as architectural ornament and object.
The relief form originated thousands of years ago, and it stretches across human civilizations. Traditionally, the relief, modeled or carved, has been considered part of the field of sculpture. At the same time, it has a background plane, which means that pictorial space is formed and that the format leans towards the pictorial form. Compared to free-standing sculpture, the relief has an inherent, material economy that allows it to depict historical events with crowds, or a sky with stars, and it has the potential for perspective.
