Sissel Marie Tonn

Sissel Marie Tonn has long been fascinated by “bog bodies”, ancient human remains discovered in northern-Europe peatlands. Archaeologists believe that people in pre-Christian societies saw bogs as portals to worlds of spirits, gods and ancestors, and sacrificed humans to the bog to bargain with these forces. Today, bogs are understood as crucial deposit sites of CO2 that are endangered by climate change and human exploitation. Through video, sound and ceramics Tonn explores the bogs and the bodies as bridges between past, present and future. At EKWC she worked with 3D and CT scans of excavated bog bodies, but imagining a nonintrusive archaeology, she also explored ways to digitally lift the bodies from the bog. In collaboration with the Fab Lab she translated the digital files into physical sculptures. In this expression their bodily form becomes inseparable from the roots of the bog growing over and through them, a strong reminder that we are inextricably entwined with our environment.

Arian de Vette

Jiajia Qi

Jiajia Qi’s first interest is in architectural space and the way her works can transform it. The past few years, she increasingly used light, reflections and transparent materials, so working with ceramics for the first time asked quite some adjustments. If a piece doesn’t come out of the kiln the way you intended, you just have to make it again. Qi did a lot of tests to find the most reflective glazes. Her residency was as much about the learning process as it was about the works she made. One is a large dish, with a magnificent blue glaze that reflects the light in small sparks that seem to run across the ribbed surface like electric pulses in a circuit or impulses through the brain. She also made a series of large very flat discs meant to reflect light in an installation she will be building later.

Junghun Kim

Pollution and destruction, capitalist exploitation and mindless consumption lead to degradation of the natural world, inevitably leaving traces in the human soul as well. In the exhibition Breathe a Mending Song into These Earthly Wounds, artist Junghun Kim summons up the Spirit of Geology to chant the woes of the world from a non-human perspective. Using the vocal technique of traditional Korean pansori, the Spirit emphatically pleads with humans to acknowledge the interconnectedness of everything in nature. The exhibition includes two large sculptures Kim made at EKWC. One incorporates multitudes of species in their future co-evolution, while the other invites the audience to contemplate recorded sounds of the five agents of Wuxing philosophy – wood, fire, earth, metal, water – that constantly interact in cycles of destruction and generation.

Dorothea Nold

The movement of an earth quake may linger in the body to resurface one day in a group of skeleton buildings on the verge of crumbling. Or are they dancing? For years, artist Dorothea Nold researched our physical relation to the architectural environment, but in the work she made at EKWC, the buildings become bodies themselves. Inspired by Sicily’s exuberant botany and rich architecture, several sculptures blur the line between growth and construction, with leaves sprouting from the arcs and columns that rise up to the sky. After the first building collapsed in the kiln, Nold decided to allow an element of chance and decay. As she was building new pieces, she refrained from reinforcing them even when she knew there were weak spots. After firing, all the works were deformed and leaning over, but they were still standing, as a testimony to both human vulnerability and resilience.

Sharon van Overmeijeren

As summer heat grips the European continent, Asiat Park in Vilvoorde (BE) remains remarkably cool due to the Ancestral Air Conditioning System installed by artist Sharon Van Overmeiren. The towering installation built from mauled terra cotta bricks and monumental ceramics cools the environment using water that runs through the structure. Is it a cave? Is it a temple? It is certainly a reminder that crowded Belgium could benefit from a little more climate consciousness. Van Overmeiren developed the work in collaboration with Instituut voor Volkswarmte (Institute for Public Warmth) for the Horst Arts & Music Festival. She made the ceramic stupas and portals at EKWC, along with a series of sculptures and wall pieces for Art Brussels. The Air Conditioning System will stay in Asiat Park, to be overgrown by plants and blend in with its surroundings.

Fleur van Dodewaard

Guido van der Linden

For Guido van der Linden, teacher and coach at the School for Young Talent in The Hague, an EKWC residency was a return to his artistic practice and to his favourite theme of hidden or implicit presence. First, he press-moulded several large (1 meter diameter) ceramic dishes, designed to transmit the delicate sound of a heartbeat across a thirty-meter distance. Keeping them in one piece posed considerable technical problems, which only made him enjoy it more. He proceeded with a set of tiles modelled on the pavers in the street leading to his grandfather’s home. Only when these demanding works were finished, he found the space to play and experiment, throwing slabs of clay against trees in the Oisterwijk forest for instance. The results capture an absence, an empty space to indicate that something once was there.

Jan Bokma

One glance at the highly polished sculptures Jan Bokma made before he came to EKWC betrays their perfection, the tireless refinement and time-consuming attention for detail. The contrast to the spontaneous, intuitive works he made in Oisterwijk could hardly be bigger. They deal with the same grand themes of life and death and procreation, just a bit messier, more organic, inspired by mushrooms and fungi that grow on decaying wood amidst the living trees. Bokma is delighted with the new impulses clay gave to his artistic process. The sculptures are a direct expression of the connection he feels with all kinds of life forms that thrive and propagate and feed on each other with a force that is at once macabre and inexplicably erotic.

Ottokaji Iroke

Looking at Ottokaji Iroke’s work, you might come to the conclusion that misunderstanding is the default human relation. A ceramic towel reads ‘I said tower’ and a series of mugs deformed beyond recognition is called ‘I said mug, not mud’. Daily watercolours on pee pads continue in the same vein and a video shot in his EKWC bedroom is a rhythmical riff on the distinction between Hamburg and hamburger. For all its humour, Ottokaji Iroke’s play with words, images, sounds and signs often points to an underlying reality of societal tensions. A ceramic Identity Politics Bible is called ‘Ho Lee Fuk’. Trivial observations like the different shapes of croissants in the Oisterwijk supermarkets lead to gold-lustred sculptures referring Nike and the Venus of Willendorf to address thorny questions of food, fitness, success and body image. A word of caution is in order: only the holder of a Universal Passport to the United States of Pizza may safely travel this carefully constructed field of associative meaning.