Fragments – Exploration of Territory through Clay
Sara Tebaldi
My project began as an exploration of the narrative capabilities of the ceramic artifact. How the craftsman finds and tells a story, and how clay responds to the movements of his or her hands were the questions that inspired me to begin this journey. The more I looked into this material, the more fascinated I was by its deep connection with the Earth, an Earth in constant change and dominated by two opposing forces: the force of culture and the force of nature. Their continuous battle gives rise to the most interesting forms, such as those of the ‘Third Landscape’, which lives, changes, and grows beside us without ever being noticed. Investigating this landscape, however, I did not find a passive, harmless nature, I found instead an active, evolving nature, full of strength and sometimes even threatening. A nature that enters our homes, and crosses our thresholds, without an invitation but with every right to do so. In this, I found something pro-foundly contemporary. I therefore decided to represent a reminiscence of our contemporary Earth, through the Earth itself, collecting fragments of the Territory, and traces of our present, imprinting them in clay so that the ceramic can tell their story, freezing them as in a photograph.